A great, sudden fear reached into Rafen’s chest and clutched tight around his hearts with claws of ice. Meros saw the look in his eyes and his expression begged the question.
‘Rafen? What is wrong?’
So much, kinsman. Rafen tried to give voice to the words, but he could not move. He was frozen there, his flesh ignoring every command he gave it. So much is wrong. If the Apothecary truly was Meros of the Blood Angels, if he truly was the Astartes who lay as no more than bone and ashes in the halls of the dead on Baal, then in some way Rafen could not fathom, the man lived in another time, another place.
A place before the death of Sanguinius. Oh, what glory to live in that moment. And what horror yet to come.
With all his might, with every last moment of his strength, Rafen fought to utter a warning. From his mouth came a single, strangled word. A curse.
‘Horus–‘
Gold shimmered in the darkness. The figure in armour was there, and Meros did not seem to see him. With infinite slowness, a gauntlet of brass and shining amber raised to place a hand over the silent lips of an unmoving mask. The message was without ambiguity, the command unmistakable.
Silence.
Unaware, Meros held out a hand to touch the other warrior’s shoulder. ‘Rafen? We are victorious… What troubles you?’
But then the moment faded, and the sands became as blood, drowning them both.
The Touch of Sanguine Dawn opened and cast crimson liquid across the flagstones of the Hall of Sarcophagi in a steaming tide.
Wet with fluids, Rafen stumbled from the interior of the golden orb and fell to one knee. He coughed and tore the breather tubes from his nostrils, taking ragged gulps of air. ‘I… I am alive…’
‘Indeed.’ The dark voice drew his gaze up. He found himself looking into burning eyes that dared him to break away. The power of Lord Mephiston’s will was almost impossible to resist.
Finally, he released Rafen and the warrior looked down at the tracks along his arms where numerous vitae guides had been implanted. ‘The… blood…’
‘Gone,’ Mephiston told him. ‘The measure of the Primarch’s sacred vitae has been returned to the Red Grail, to its rightful state. Balance, restored at last.’
Rafen slowly climbed to his feet, as blood-servitors swept in to clean and reconsecrate the ancient sarcophagus. ‘Then at last my mission is complete. I feared it would destroy me.’
The psyker-lord looked up, to the ornate stained-glass windows set in the walls over their heads. ‘You have stood at the edge of death’s abyss for weeks, Rafen. Lemartes and many others believed you would perish, and pass unto the Emperor’s right hand. But you defy the odds once again.’ He turned that baleful gaze back toward the Blood Angel. ‘One might wonder if you were blessed. Or cursed.’
Rafen drew himself up. ‘Whatever the Emperor wills.’
Mephiston came closer. ‘A question, Brother-Sergeant. What did you see in there?’
‘Nothing…’ The lie came to him before he could stop himself. He thought of red sands, a golden warrior, a kinsman millennia-dead. Now, as he stood here in this place of stone and steel, what he had experienced seemed like the fantasy of a fevered mind. Rafen’s hand strayed to his chest, to the place where his progenoid gene-seed implant lay dormant. ‘I… dreamed. Nothing more.’
‘Perhaps,’ said the psyker. ‘It is written that the Great Angel was possessed of a powerful psionic talent. Some say that he read the hearts and minds of his warrior sons as if they were open pages of a book. That he saw his own death at the hands of the Arch-traitor. That to him, even the veil of time was a malleable thing.’ He nodded. ‘The power of Sanguinius resonated through his very blood. Even ten thousand years on, we know this to be true.’ Rafen watched as Mephiston crossed to The Touch of Sanguine Dawn and stroked it with infinite gentleness. ‘These great sarcophagi,’ he went on, ‘they were built to his design. They are links to his will. And one might wonder if, after so many centuries of use, if they might not have absorbed some measure of his eternal power.’ He turned back to face Rafen. ‘Do you understand, Brother-Sergeant?’
When Rafen spoke again, the truth welled up in him. ‘I saw something,’ he admitted.
‘What was it?’
‘A myth,’ Rafen whispered.
‘Open it,’ commanded the warrior in gold. ‘Do it now.’
‘My lord–‘ Brother-Sergeant Cassiel tried to object, but a single sharp look was enough to silence his objections. ‘As you wish.’ He threw a nod to the legion serfs crowded around the flanks of The Touch of Sanguine Dawn, and as one they opened the petals of the sphere.
Dark rivers of crimson flowed from the interior, running away into drain vents. Light from the Hermia’s lumeglobes revealed the figure within, a muscled form pale in flesh, breathing hard. With every passing second, the colour returned to him.
Sarga leaned in. ‘The wound has closed. I see no signs of lingering infection.’
‘What about the shard itself?’ asked Cassiel.
Sarga nodded to himself. ‘Destroyed. The sarcophagus disintegrated it, purged all trace of it from his system. He lives.’
‘Get him out,’ said the gold-armoured warrior.
The serfs did as they were ordered to, and moved to carry the Blood Angel to a grav-litter. He stirred, and pushed them away, standing on his own, blinking in the light.
‘We… are freed…’ He whispered.
Cassiel gave him a fresh robe. ‘Meros. How do you feel, brother?’
He gave a nod. ‘I live. Thanks to you.’
‘It would seem so.’
Meros turned to see who had addressed him, and a flash of shock crossed his face. ‘You–?’ But then in the next moment, he composed himself. ‘Forgive me. The golden armour… I thought you were… Someone else.’
‘You know who I am?’ The warrior was a towering figure, resplendent in the master-crafted wargear of a High Sanguinary Guard – the praetorians of the Primarch himself. Dark, shoulder-length hair fell about his gorget, framing a long, noble aspect.
‘You are Azkaellon,’ said Meros, ‘bearer of the Glaive Encarmine and the banner-master. First among the Sanguinary Guard.’ He met the other man’s gaze. ‘What do you wish of me?’
‘I came to see if you would die,’ Azkaellon replied, his voice cold and steady. ‘I learned of your bravery on Nartaba Octus and wished to see the face of a battle-brother who would meet such odds. With those wounds, I expected to witness your passing… but clearly the strength of the Great Angel himself runs strong in your heart.’
Meros gave a shallow bow. ‘I will not die yet. Sanguinius will tell me when that time is at hand.’
For the first time, Azkaellon showed a flicker of emotion; the briefest of smiles. ‘You seem certain,’ he went on. ‘Tell me, Meros. How do you know that to be so?’ He nodded to the sarcophagus. ‘Did you… see something while you slumbered?’
Meros recalled visions of red sands, a golden warrior and a kinsman he did not know. His hand strayed to where his progenoid gene-seed implant lay beneath his flesh. ‘My own fears made manifest,’ he replied, at length. ‘Now banished forever.’
‘As it should be,’ Azkaellon said, with a nod. ‘Now rest, Meros.’ He looked around at Cassiel and the others. ‘All of you, gather your strength and prepare for battle. I have this hour received orders from our primarch. The Hermia and Task Force Ignis are to rendezvous with the rest of our Legion’s ships.’
‘Which flotilla?’ said Sarga.
Azkaellon did not grace him with a glance. ‘All of them. The Legion musters in its entirety for battle and new glory.’
Meros’s brow furrowed. Such an assemblage of the Sons of Sanguinius was unprecedented. For the primarch to gather them all for war, the deed would be of great import. ‘Where are we going?’ he asked.
‘Our liege-lord’s brother, the Warmaster Horus Lupercal, has given us a duty that only the Blood Angels are capable of,
’ said the Sanguinary Guard. ‘We are to bring the light of the Imperium to the worlds of the Signus Cluster.’
REFLECTION IN BLOOD
BY
JAMES SWALLOW
Epistolary ceris sensed the arrival of the Knights before they became visible through the oxide mists. He said nothing, only turned his head and raised his gauntlet a degree or two, enough for Sergeant Rafen and the rest of the squad to know that the renegades were close at hand.
Also silent, Rafen gestured to Puluo and Ajir to lower their bolters. The two warriors obeyed, but reluctantly. The sergeant’s own pistol and blade had not left holster or scabbard since the squad had put down on this nameless, barren moon, but the tension of potential battle was there in every move he made, if one knew where to look for it. And while the four of them now made a show of being at peace, in the haze behind them where their Thunderhawk sat, Brothers Turcio and Kayne were concealed with weapons at the ready.
Rafen stepped forward and absently fingered the haft of the standard planted in the moon’s rusty regolith. A simple pennant hung from it, a field of bright crimson bearing the white device of a winged droplet to signify the presence of the IX Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes: the Blood Angels. A ritual thing, the standard was part of the agreement. Its symbology was the implicit covenant that this meeting, in this place, was to be under the banner of truce.
Those with whom he had been sent to parley came from the mist like wraiths of legend, five of them. While their armour marks were of comparable type to those of Rafen’s squad, their wargear seemed somehow older. Not decrepit and failing, but careworn in a way that showed great devotion and constant use. Most of the armour had the cast of pewter to it, but splashes of dark arterial red dominated their shoulder pauldrons, their chest plates and helms. He saw the sigil of their Chapter as it glittered in the directionless sunlight: a white shield over two crossed swords, a drop of crimson upon it.
The Knights of Blood. Once a successor born of Rafen’s Chapter, they had been declared renegade nearly a millennium ago. Their brutality and zeal, dreaded throughout the Imperium, had been such that it was not only the enemies of man that suffered at their hands. The Knights refused to moderate their ways, and so an edict of excommunication had been passed. It was said they still prosecuted their crusade against all foes, the demands of the Inquisition be damned.
‘They don’t look like traitors,’ muttered Puluo over the vox, as the leading Knight planted a standard of his own in the dirt. Another of the cadre stood at his side, subtle battle marks and honour-chains differentiating one from another.
‘They don’t all have tentacles and spit ichor,’ offered Ajir. ‘Be wary.’
Rafen ignored the comments and took another step forward, giving his name and rank. ‘We are here,’ he added. ‘My master Dante granted this. You wish to speak?’
‘Only two sharpshooters,’ said the first Knight. ‘Not enough.’
Rafen resisted the urge to look over his shoulder. ‘More than enough.’
The second Knight chuckled softly and removed his helmet to reveal a dark face crisscrossed by scars. ‘I am Ser Koth. My brother here is Ser Rale. Greetings, Blood Angel.’
‘What do you want?’ Rafen asked, following suit while measuring the other warrior’s aspect.
‘To the point,’ Koth’s faint smile faded. ‘Very well. We have something that belongs to you.’ He waved a hand, and a piston-legged servitor ambled out of the mist carrying a casket in its brass grippers.
Warily, Ceris went to meet it, and the servitor halted obediently. The psyker seemed on edge, looking this way and that for enemies that were not there. After a moment, the Blood Angel cracked the seal of the casket and peered inside. Rafen caught sight of familiar shapes in red ceramite. Broken pieces of power armour.
‘Regretfully, this is all that remains of one of your squads,’ said Koth. ‘But we believed you would wish it repatriated to you.’
Rafen’s hand was on the hilt of his sword. ‘How did they perish?’
Koth sighed. ‘We did not end them, Sergeant Rafen. Whatever our reputation, the Knights of Blood would never prey upon our blood-kindred.’
‘Orks,’ growled the other Knight. ‘Dead now.’
‘Lord,’ Ceris held up a glassy canister containing knots of fleshy matter suspended in life-fluids. ‘They have recovered the progenoids.’
‘Aye,’ Koth went on. ‘The gene-seed of your late brothers. It seemed wrong to allow it to be lost.’
‘Why didn’t you just take them?’ The question spilled out of Ajir, laced with venom. ‘Your kind respect naught. Why pretend otherwise?’
Rafen turned to censure the warrior, but Rale was already speaking. ‘Told you, Ser,’ he snapped at Koth. ‘Just like the rest. A waste of time.’
‘We cannot accept those,’ Ajir insisted. ‘They are tainted by proximity to these traitors!’
Rale moved to advance on Ajir, but Koth put out a hand to stop him. ‘We are renegades,’ he said coldly. ‘Not traitors. An important difference.’
‘You know nothing about us,’ Rale growled.
‘We know what we have been told,’ Rafen replied. ‘We know what is in the history books.’
‘You know what the Inquisition wishes to be known,’ Koth shot back. He pointed at Rafen. ‘Do you know what we have been told about you, Sergeant Rafen? A failed aspirant who cheated his way into the Chapter, whose taint-hearted brother almost turned you against yourselves. Is that the full truth? Or is there more to it?’ He glared at the Blood Angel. ‘Who do we listen to? Outsiders? Or those whose veins carry the power of Sanguinius? Forever blessed be his light.’
‘This is pointless.’ Rale turned away, snatching up the standard. The gesture had only one meaning. The parley was over, and the two groups were now enemies again. All hands went to their weapons. ‘We are not like them, Ser Koth,’ concluded the Knight. ‘They have already judged us.’
Rafen hesitated, struggling with the moment. There was more at hand here, he could sense it. But what? Not a trap… Something else. He strode to the casket and took the canister from Ceris, turning it over in his armoured fingers. ‘The loss of even one progenoid lessens us all,’ he noted. ‘Few would risk death to bring them to safety.’ He turned to study Koth and Rale. ‘For we are within our rights to kill you, renegade. The High Lords of Terra order it so.’
‘You may make the attempt,’ said Koth. ‘And in the deed, prove Ser Rale is correct about you.’
And now Rafen felt he was grasping the edges of understanding. ‘You did not need to come here in person, Knight. You could have left the casket on this world and sent us the location. We had no need to even breathe the same air.’ There was that faint smile again on Koth’s face. ‘Why?’
‘I admit to it,’ said the other warrior.
Suddenly, Rafen felt a cold pressure on his thoughts and saw a glitter of witch-light in Koth’s ebon gaze. At his side, Ceris stiffened and he knew at once: the Knight was a psyker. ‘I wanted to look you in the eye, Blood Angel. That is why we made the demand of Dante, that he send you and your squad.’
Rafen said nothing, allowing the renegade Librarian to read his surface thoughts and know he was without guile. Chapter Master Dante had not seen fit to inform Rafen of the reasons he had been chosen for this mission, and now he understood. ‘You have done so,’ he said. ‘What is your conclusion?’
A shadow passed over Koth’s face and the psyker’s calculating touch retreated. ‘We are all sons of Sanguinius beneath the skin, no matter what the agents of the Inquisition may say. The Knights of Blood wished to know if their erstwhile kinsmen are still so. That question has been satisfied, and so we will turn our rage upon the forces of the Archenemy once more, knowing that Baal remains in safe hands.’
Rafen frowned, realising too late that the true purpose of this entire endeavour had been beyond him from the start. ‘Why not come back with us and see for yourself?’ As the question
left his lips, Ajir shot him an aghast look.
Koth barked out a bitter laugh. ‘We are not the Flesh Tearers. Our excesses are not sanctioned by Terra. No, Baal is forever denied to us now. Better that we simply part ways here and return to our battle-brothers with what we have been given.’
The Blood Angel weighed the glass canister in his hand. ‘What have I given you, Ser Koth?’
‘Truth,’ said the Knight, turning away, donning his helmet once more.
‘You’re going to let them leave?’ Ajir questioned.
‘Yes,’ said Ceris, answering for Rafen. ‘Because if we fire a single shot, the dozen other Knights concealed out in the mists will cut us down in a heartbeat.’ The psyker glanced at the sergeant. ‘Forgive me, lord. Ser Koth’s mind is quite powerful. He hid not only his true nature from me, but the existence of his men as well.’
Rafen’s jaw stiffened. ‘I do not like to be played,’ he called, throwing the words after the departing Knights.
‘We are all pieces in the same game, Rafen.’ Koth’s voice echoed back to them as he vanished into the haze. ‘The trick is to ensure the rules are of your own making.’
Blood Angels - The Complete Rafen Omnibus - James Swallow Page 117
