Blood Angels - The Complete Rafen Omnibus - James Swallow

by Warhammer 40K

  He nodded. “As you command.”

  “The mission,” intoned the psyker. “The mission first and foremost, Rafen. There has never been a moment more deadly to our brotherhood than this one. You are granted a singular trust this day. I know you will prove worthy of it.”

  Mephiston left then, and it was a long moment before Rafen looked up to find he was the only soul in the chamber.

  Above him, carved from the walls, figures of the Emperor and Sanguinius looked down upon him and his duty yet to be fulfilled.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The skies over Baal were filled with crimson.

  Dozens of warships ranging in size from small corvettes to massive grand cruisers lay in lines of stately repose, at high anchor over the desert world’s equator. Each craft had its own packet of space to surround it, each ship positioned in the same orbital plane so that no one vessel was seen to be above or below the others, in order to satisfy protocol. Only one group of craft drifted higher, near the dry docks at cislunar positions; the warcraft of the Blood Angels themselves. This was only right and proper; Baal was the home world of the Chapter and they were its masters. Every other Astartes gathered here was an honoured guest—to be respected, indeed, but still a guest.

  Rafen imagined that some of his cousins would chafe before such a display, and he understood the feeling. The role had been reversed only a short time before on Eritaen. But now the Flesh Tearers were the invited of his Chapter, and it was upon them to tread carefully. Not that they will. It isn’t their way.

  He considered Seth once again, wondering if the Chapter Master was watching the same display from the Tycho’s staterooms three decks down. He was a curious one; Seth confounded Rafen’s expectation of what he thought a Flesh Tearer would be. He had no outward show of the bloodthirsty arrogance that Gorn and Noxx displayed. Their Chapter Master was eternally dour, distant in thought, as if he were still fighting a battle in some far off place that only his sight could reach. Seth was the polar opposite to the charismatic Dante.

  The Tycho moved with care into a pre-determined block of sky and came to a steady stop on spears of thrust, anchoring in a geostationary position. To the starboard floated a red frigate with yellow trim, with a plunging solar sail emerging from the ventral hull. Upon the shimmering panel, there was the silhouette of a great black grail and above it a dark falling droplet.

  “Blood Drinkers,” said Kayne, half to himself, the young Space Marine approaching the viewing window where his commander stood. “They came all the way from the Lethe Front, so I heard.”

  Rafen nodded but said nothing. Beyond the Blood Drinker ship lay a battle cruiser whose prow was a gigantic bone-white skull. Ruby-coloured wings reached back from it down the length of the bow. He saw the maws of torpedo bays inside the huge, sightless eye sockets. The rest of the craft was rendered in only two colours; the starboard side from stem to stern all in rich red, the port a nightfall black. “The Angels Sanguine,” he noted, breaking his silence to point out the vessel to the youth. “And beyond them the ships of the Angels Vermillion.”

  “I feel blessed to see this day,” Kayne was humbled by the sight. “How many of our battle-brothers can say they witnessed such an august gathering as this one, sir?” He smiled slightly. “I would give much to be in the chamber when all the elite of these Chapters meet. I imagine it would be… interesting to observe.”

  Rafen’s eyes narrowed and he shot the other Space Marine a hard look. “This is not a game, Kayne. This conclave has been called to discuss matters of the utmost gravity. Remember that.”

  The youth bowed his head, chastened. “Of course, brother-sergeant I meant no disrespect.” After a moment, he spoke again. “Are we the last to arrive?”

  “The shipmaster informs me that two more craft are behind us, to arrive within the hour, the White of Eye and the Rapier. Once they have taken their positions, it is my understanding the conclave will commence in earnest.”

  Rafen’s discussion with Tycho’s shipmaster had tested his patience somewhat; not with the man himself, but with the orders the officer had been forced to relay to the Blood Angel. A complicated web of flight corridors had been set up so that Thunderhawks and Aquila shuttles from each of the assembled craft would not cross over one another in transit, and a rotation of landing patterns was in place so that each contingent would set foot upon Baal’s surface in order of seniority and Founding. It ground on his mood to consider that some of his cousins would insist on such posturing and open display of rank; given the importance of the meeting, could they not dispense with it all and meet as equals?

  Before he left Baal to find Seth, Rafen had asked that question of Corbulo. The steady-eyed sanguinary high priest had allowed a rare laugh to escape his careful demeanour. Brother, he had said, for all the greatness the Emperor granted us, he also made us rivals to one another. Sigils, flags and honours are at the core of what we are. If we ignore our heraldry, we deny part of our natures.

  All too true. And yet, still Rafen’s impatience wound tight.

  “It’s strange,” Kayne was speaking again. “I look down there, lord, to the surface of Baal and I see the scope of the land.” He pointed toward geographical features visible through the thin clouds. “The Chalice Mountains. The Great Chasm Rift and the Ruby Sea… I know this place as I would a brother.” The youth nodded at the other ships in orbit. “But to them… What is Baal? A vague, abstract thing? A place they only know of from doctrine and myth?”

  The planet turned slowly beneath their feet. The desolate rust-red sphere had a stark kind of beauty to it, the layers of radioactive dust in the upper atmosphere haloed by the glow of Baal’s red giant star. Such a harsh and unforgiving world, and yet the sight of it moved both men in a manner that neither would have found easy to articulate.

  Rafen glanced at his subordinate. “You wonder if our cousins are as awed to be here as you are by their presence, perhaps?”

  To his surprise, Kayne shook his head. “No, sir. I wonder if they will revere Baal as much as I do.”

  Rafen sensed the unspoken thought in the other man’s mind. “The Flesh Tearers are only one successor among many, Kayne. The character of the Sons of Sanguinius differs greatly from one to another.”

  He got a slow nod in return. “It will be an education to see those differences in the flesh.”

  Rafen found himself returning the gesture, once more feeling the press of the days to come. “Yes. That it will.”

  “It’s not what I expected,” said Noxx. He stood at the stateroom’s window, his helmet in the crook of his arm, staring down at the planet. “I thought it would be more…”

  “Impressive?” offered his commander. Captain Gorn’s attention was elsewhere, as he used a small monocular to peer into the darkness, studying the other ships that surrounded them. “When held in comparison to Cretacia, it does seem a sparse vista. No jungle-sprawls and swamplands, no wreathes of storm clouds.”

  “I suppose, lord. Perhaps I was foolish to imagine that birthplace of the Great Angel, may the light find him, would be a glittering sphere made of gold and ruby.”

  From behind them, their Chapter Master spoke without looking up from the business of polishing his armour. “Remember your doctrine, Noxx. Do not be obtuse. You know as well as any of us, Baal is not his birthplace. Sanguinius rose on the second moon, Baal Secundus.”

  “The moons cannot be seen from this orbital position,” noted Gorn, with a frown. “We are over the dayside, our angle is too low.”

  Noxx was quiet for a moment, framing a question. “Do you think… Would we perhaps be allowed to go there? To Secundus and the Angel’s Fall? The place where he lived as an infant…” As much as he might have wanted to disguise it, there was a strong reverence in the veteran sergeant’s gruff voice.

  Seth went on with his work. “I would think not. The Blood Angels are very protective of their exalted First Founding status, brother-sergeant. I imagine they would
not take kindly to the heavy boots of an Astartes of the Second Founding upon their hallowed ground.”

  “Lord Dante would not dare to deny such a request,” said Gorn, “not if you made it, master.”

  “My cousin Dante dares to do many things, so it would seem,” Seth mused. “That we are here is evidence of it.” He flicked the cloth in his hand with an irritated snap, signalling a change in the direction of the conversation. “The ships, Gorn. Tell me what you see out there.”

  The Blood Angel Rafen spoke the truth. “Many vessels are gathered here, from nearly every Founding of our kindred, so it would seem. I spy the Angels Encarmine. The Flesh Eaters.”

  A slow smile formed on Seth’s lips. “Well, now. The Flesh Eaters. Still alive, are they? They have the warp’s luck.”

  “I imagine they say the same of us, lord,” noted Noxx.

  In an eye’s blink, Seth’s cold humour vanished. “You imagine, do you? And what else do you imagine our cousins say of us?” He was on his feet, the cloth fluttering to the deck, his mood darkening by the moment. “We, whose small fleet is so mired in conflict that we could not even come to Baal aboard one of our own vessels?”

  Both Noxx and Gorn fell silent. Seth’s temper had been mercurial all through the journey from Eritaen; flashes of annoyance that grew more frequent the closer they got to their destination. Neither spoke, instead allowing their leader to vent the frustration that had been slowly building in him. He gestured sharply at the craft out beyond the armourglass window. “Such pride they must have, our cousins, with their pretty ships. Such pity for us.” He stalked toward Noxx. “I ask you, brother-sergeant, what kind of blood-cursed luck do we have?”

  “I… have no answer for you, lord.”

  Seth held his gaze for a long moment, then turned away. “I shall tell you, then. We are cursed, brothers. Caught on the claws of our own savagery, ravaged by the thirst and the rage, the least numbered of the successors of Sanguinius.” He held up a spread hand, the thumb tucked away. “Four. Four companies is all we number, and yet we install such fear in our enemies that Chapters of twice our size cannot! But for all that, are we respected? Are we not judged by every Astartes who lays his eyes upon us?”

  “It is so,” agreed Noxx.

  “Dante brings us here to bemoan the wounds suffered by his legion, but never once have our cousins considered our wounds! Our pain!”

  Captain Gorn swallowed hard and shifted his weight. “Then… If I would be allowed to ask this… Why did you go against your first answer to the Blood Angel, Rafen? In Amit’s name, my lord, why are we here?”

  And at that, Seth’s smile began a slow return. “What Rafen spoke of gave me renewed faith, brother-captain. It reminded me that Emperor is good and just, that he places the reward for hubris upon those who deserve it. The Blood Angels are so very proud, Gorn. And that conceit rose up and bit them, down to the marrow! After ten thousand years, they are suddenly wanting. The threat of dissolution shrouds them. Now Dante and his kindred understand how we feel, do you see? They are learning the lesson that the Flesh Tearers have known for millennia.” His eyes glittered. “That when one is clinging to the ragged edge…” He made claws of his hands. “You will do everything you must not to fall into the abyss.”

  “They want our help,” said Noxx.

  “Yes,” said Seth, “more than that, they need it like air to breathe. And when a warrior finds himself upon such a balance of need, he can… He must take advantage of it.”

  Noxx folded his arms across his chest plate. “So the question is no longer why, but how. How can the troubles of the Blood Angels be to the benefit of our Chapter?”

  “Such talk might be seen by some as seditious,” noted Gorn.

  Seth gave a humourless snort. “We are Astartes. It is our nature to seek the tactical advantage in all situations, in war or elsewhere. Everything we do is in the Emperor’s name. He has never been one to accept weakness, and neither shall we.”

  “Have the Blood Angels become weak, my lord?”

  “That is what we will learn, brother-captain.”

  The Arvus-class lighter dropped quickly from the sky, the hard gusts of wind buffeting the boxy fuselage as it spiralled in toward the cracked, arctic escarpments below. The bleak wilderness of Baal’s polar zone went to the horizon, the frozen ridges of snow and ice like motionless waves caught on a pict screen. The white vista was tinged with the slightest aura of pink, where rock dust from the planet’s iron-rich mantle was infused with the glaciers.

  The lighter pressed through a screeching windstorm and continued downward, the stabilator wings vibrating. Caecus glanced through the viewing slit next to his acceleration couch. He had made similar journeys more times than he could recall, back and forth across Baal, to every part of the home world, and to worlds beyond in service to his research. The hard flight of the trip’s last leg was of no concern to him; it served to remind him that he would soon be back where he should be, with the work. This trip, out across to Baal Primus, had been of little value, as he had suspected it would be. A thin sigh escaped the Apothecae Majoris and his hand tapped absently on the case by his side; the genetic material he had sampled from the tribals on the first moon would doubtless prove as useless as all the others. The impurities, they were the problem. If only it were possible to find a sample uncontaminated by radiation, by biological drift…

  The ground was rising up to meet them, and across the shield plains to the south-west Caecus made out a string of red dots, bright against the ice field like droplets of blood on a sheet of vellum.

  Battle-brothers. The tiny points of vivid colour were Astartes undergoing a trial, men dropped in with no weapons, no supplies, nothing but an order to make their way to some nondescript frozen crag and survive there for a span of days. They were Scouts from the tenth company, some of them advanced to full rank out of schedule because of the current crisis in numbers. Caecus wondered if they would be ready. Deaths were not uncommon during such exercises, stemming from mishaps upon the punishing ice or attacks by the feral packbears that prowled through the snows.

  “We cannot brook more losses.” It was a moment before the Apothecary realised he had spoken aloud; but alone in the lighter’s cargo bay, there was no one to remark upon it. He shook his head as the Arvus began to turn to the east.

  “Lord.” The flat, rote diction of the lighter’s pilot-servitor issued out from a speaker grille on the bulkhead. “We are about to land at the citadel. Prepare for touchdown.”

  The craft swooped around a high ridge and Caecus saw the tower. A pillar of frost-rimed red stone, it was a rusty spike hammered into the white crest of ice and rock. The lines of the Vitalis Citadel were smooth and sheer, marred only by the shape of a bartizan emerging from the apex. The battlemented structure protruded from the side of the tower, the flat circular roof providing a landing stage for service craft. Forty levels high, the tower was only the visible marker for the compound that ranged beneath it. Many such satellite facilities were scattered across Baal’s surface; as well as the citadel’s medicae complex, there were the reliquaries at Sangre in the south and the great labworks of the Chapter’s Tech-marines in the Regio Quinquaginta-Unus. These places were spread far apart so that any potential enemy attack could not strike them all at once—and also to minimize any fallout damage in the event of an emergency within their walls.

  The circular section of the roof of the bartizan drew back in an iris and the Arvus settled into it, rocking as the winds nudged the craft. The lighter eased into a cradle with a jerk, and Caecus was out of his restraints before the hatchway was half-open, ducking low to avoid the rising panel of hull metal. Overhead, the iris was closing, but a few flakes of thick snow had followed them in, drifting in the steady, cool air of the citadel.

  Fenn stood waiting for him at the foot of the landing cradle, with a servitor at his flank. The Chapter serf bowed. “Majoris,” he began. “Welcome back.”

  Ca
ecus handed the sample case to the servitor and the machine-helot clacked a binary-code reply, before limping away on piston-driven legs across the exhaust-stained decking. “A wasted journey,” he told his subordinate.

  Fenn frowned; that was to say, he frowned more than usual. Rail-thin and somewhat unkempt in aspect, the serf always exhibited an outward appearance of fretful worry, his hands finding each other to wring as he addressed problems or points of concern. His outward appearance belied a keen mind, though. Like most of the Chapter serfs in service to the Blood Angels, Fenn had been recruited from the tribes of the Blood on Baal Secundus. Judged too weak to endure the punishing rituals that would transform a normal man into a Space Marine, as Caecus’ assistant, his intelligence still served the Chapter.

  “I should have gone in your stead,” Fenn noted. “The possibility of harvesting new data from Primus was always a marginal one, at the very best.”

  Caecus nodded. “True. But I needed an excuse to leave the laboratorium for a time. To remind myself that a galaxy still exists outside these walls.” He gestured at the citadel around them.

  Fenn’s fingers knotted. “There has been no improvement in the latest test series,” he said, answering Caecus’ question before he asked it. Fenn’s ability to anticipate his master’s thoughts was one of the reasons that Caecus had kept him in his service for so long, even to the point of granting the man juvenat treatments so that the serf might share in some small measure of a Blood Angel’s longevity.

  The Apothecary nodded, taking in his comments, as they walked to the heavy elevator car that would carry them to the lower levels. “Did we receive any… visitors while I was off-world?”

  “No one came, my lord.”

  “As I expected.” For all the great gnashing of teeth and stern, earnest words about the great import of the work taking place in the citadel, their labours were largely ignored, the plaudits going instead to those who engaged in the many battles under the Blood Angels banner. There would never be honours given and portraits painted of the Apothecaries who toiled in this place. There were no decorations for discovering a new thread of research that might cure the Rage, no award for breaking ground on a theory that could one day stem the Thirst.