Sons of Wrath - Andy Smillie Read online

  ‘Learn when you are beaten.’ Nuriel grabbed Manakel by the throat, and hoisted him into the air.

  ‘Nuriel! Put him down,’ Brother-Sergeant Seraph barked, stepping onto the duelling stone. The rock was awash with the blood of his brothers. Blood begets blood. The thought drew a growl from Seraph. He would make Nuriel bleed for his sins.

  Nuriel lowered Manakel but kept his hands locked around the Flesh Tearer’s throat. ‘No. He has not submitted. We are not done.’

  ‘You are done, brother.’ Menadel stepped onto the opposite side of the platform, his power sword flickering with menace. ‘Do not make us kill you to prove the point.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Nuriel roared and threw Manakel at Seraph.

  The sergeant dropped into a roll, avoiding Manakel’s body as it shot past him to strike the chamber wall. ‘Death then,’ Seraph said and drew his weapons, a vicious chainaxe and short-bladed chainsword, which howled as he thumbed their activation studs.

  ‘Fools,’ Nuriel spat. ‘Look around you.’ The Librarian held out his arms, gesturing to the bodies slumped around the duelling stone, to the veterans of combat he’d broken and discarded. ‘I have bested your entire squad, Seraph. What challenge are the two of you?’

  Menadel spun his blade once, testing its weight, and activated his storm shield. ‘Let us find out.’

  Silence and darkness held dominion over the Reclusiam.

  The four thousand electro-braziers that hung from the ceiling had been extinguished. The cohort of psyber-cherubs that had attended the lanterns had been slain, along with everything else. They had yet to be replaced, and so the eaves and rafters were silent, devoid of the cherubs’ singing and the clacking of their golden wings.

  It was as though the chamber itself were in mourning, waiting for the brotherhood it served to lend a voice to its pathos.

  ‘The Blood lend me strength.’ High Chaplain Andras knelt in the chapel’s nave, his ashen tunic stretched around his torso. He looked up at the bronzed altar. It was the same pulpit he had preached from for three decades. On it stood the same lectern he had braced himself against as he preached the Moripatris and delivered battle eulogies.

  ‘Emperor, keep me in Your sight.’ He sighed, feeling as though the weight of the chapel itself were pressing down upon his shoulders.

  Everything remained the same, and yet it was not. The stone of the walls was bare, stripped of iconography and sculpture. The marble plinths bordering the chamber were empty so that no pantheon of heroes gazed down upon him. He cast his gaze to the ceiling, his enhanced eyes finding the image of the Emperor in the darkness. Rendered in oil and wax, the painting spanned the domed ceiling and depicted the Lord of Mankind in the guise of a warrior cleric. Armoured in golden plate, the Emperor wielded a bronzed mace and clutched a thick parchment. His mouth hung open in sermon while His eyes were narrowed in judgement. The many worlds of His domain bled into one other, blending to form a cloak that framed His shoulders and spilled out around His feet.

  ‘Why?’ Andras whispered, his voice faltering as he spoke to the painting.

  ‘Why what?’

  He turned, surprised to see Chaplain Zophal stood behind him. The Blood Angels Chapter symbol had been ripped from his pauldron, leaving behind a jagged wound of grey metal. Scorch marks covered his armour like a foul rash where the purity seals and litanies of battle had been burned away.

  ‘Your armour, you haven’t repaired it?’

  ‘This will suffice for now.’ Zophal stepped forwards and knelt next to Andras. ‘Why what?’

  ‘Sanguinius, our father. He was touched by the sight, and yet he did nothing to change his fate. I do not understand why he went willingly to his death.’

  ‘Not even our father could be certain of the future. He was a warrior first and our sire second. The Emperor needed his aid. Would you not have laid down your life as he did?’ Zophal’s eyes were hard, probing Andras with an interrogator’s stare.

  ‘Of course.’ Andras bared his teeth. ‘But what now? Who do we fight for now?’

  ‘The Emperor lives. We fight for Him.’

  ‘We are no longer His angels, Zophal. Guilliman has broken us.’

  Zophal was silent a moment before answering. ‘We are who we choose to be, High Chaplain.’

  Andras smiled, though his face held no warmth. ‘I fear you would have been better suited to the rank than me, brother.’

  Zophal said nothing. He would not allow his thoughts to turn to such matters, and even if in weakness and selfish pride they did, he would never speak of them.

  ‘You must find your faith, High Chaplain, your strength.’ Amit’s voice filled the Reclusiam as he entered the chamber, his every syllable a certain command. ‘We, I, will need it in the days ahead.’

  ‘Lord Amit, forgive me.’

  ‘There is nothing to forgive.’ Amit knelt by Andras. ‘It was always Sanguinius’s wish that you become High Chaplain,’ he said, and paused. ‘Zophal has another path to walk.’

  Andras was not blind to the look that passed between the Chapter Master and Zophal, but he knew better than to comment. ‘You have need of us?’

  ‘Yes,’ Amit sighed. ‘Brother-Chaplain Varel will be dead soon.’

  ‘Sanguinius keep him.’ Andras clasped his fist to his chest in salute.

  Amit nodded. ‘Zophal…’

  ‘I will see to it.’ Zophal stood, his armoured footsteps barely making a sound as he crossed the chamber.

  ‘His time among the sons of Corax was well spent,’ said Andras.

  Amit grinned. ‘Chaplain Zophal is well suited to walking in dark places.’

  The two said nothing for several moments, each alone with his thoughts, before Andras broke the silence.

  ‘Are we simply to forget the dead?’ The High Chaplain gestured to the rows of votive candles behind the pulpit. There were thousands upon thousands of them, stretching in serried ranks back into the cloisters and rising up to meet the eaves. Since the Reclusiam’s consecration, such candles had been lit in honour of the dead. Now, only a single flame flickered in the darkness.

  Amit looked to the lone candle. ‘We remember our father.’ He dipped his head as he spoke, hiding his face from Andras. ‘It is no longer our place to honour the lives of fallen Blood Angels. They will be remembered by their brothers, in a chapel that carries their Chapter symbol.’ Amit paused. ‘Our own sorrowful history has still to be written.’

  ‘I do not know which concerns me more, the angry dead or the sorrow of those left behind,’ said Andras.

  ‘If we are to triumph, to rise from this darkness,’ Amit said as he looked up, his face hard, his eyes dark pools of rage, ‘then our anger must eclipse both.’

  ‘Is that why we journey to Zurcon? To vent our anger?’ asked Andras.

  ‘Zurcon is a lost system. An unconquered frontier.’

  ‘And it is far from the crusades of our brothers,’ said Andras.

  Amit smiled. ‘It would seem my faith in you was not misplaced, Chaplain.’

  Andras’s reply was lost under a series of heavy footsteps. Amit turned to find Druel by the chamber’s entrance. Even without his Terminator armour, the Flesh Tearer was huge. Clad as he was in it, he more closely resembled the idealised statues of Space Marine heroes that adorned the plazas of Imperial cities.

  ‘Is there nowhere I may find peace today?’ said Amit. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Forgive the intrusion, Chapter Master, High Chaplain.’ Druel made the sign of the aquila over his chest and bent to one knee. The servos in his armour whined in complaint, the heavy war-plate ill-suited for such civility. ‘Librarian Nuriel has attacked our brothers in the duelling arena.’ Druel’s face was troubled, his eyes heavy with concern. ‘He–’

  ‘The rage?’ Andras tensed, his voice a whisper. The death of their father had done more than undo the Legio
n; it had cursed them, leaving them with visions of doom and a beast’s thirst for blood. The madness was incurable. It claimed more of their brothers with each passing cycle, turning them into frenzied killers who made no distinction between friend and foe.

  ‘No.’ Druel shook his head, though his face remained tight with concern. ‘It is pride not anger that drives Nuriel. Menadel and Seraph are trying to subdue him, but his gifts–’

  ‘Damn him,’ Amit roared, getting to his feet. ‘He knows better than this.’

  ‘He is not of sane mind, lord. We may have to ki–’

  ‘No.’ Amit stalked past Druel towards the exit. ‘I will deal with Nuriel.’

  Andras looked to the votive candles, idly wondering how long it would be before he had ignited them all. ‘The Blood protects,’ he whispered as the door closed behind Amit.

  ‘Not today,’ Druel said, following Amit from the chamber.

  ‘Librarian!’ Amit called as he entered the duelling chamber, arriving as Nuriel threw a punishing right hook that cracked Menadel’s storm shield and knocked the Flesh Tearer to the ground. Seraph lay just beyond them, twisted and pinned to the base of the platform by a knife driven through the flesh of his forearm. ‘Nuriel!’

  ‘What?’ Nuriel screamed in frustration, a measure of ire drained from his face as he turned to face the Chapter Master. ‘Amit.’

  ‘Enough.’ Amit paced to the weapons rack. ‘Menadel, take Seraph and go.’

  Menadel pushed himself to his feet. Hatred burned in his veins, howling at him to fight, to render Nuriel a corpse. He looked at Amit, took a slow breath and nodded. He was duty bound to honour the Chapter Master’s command, and duty was all they had left.

  ‘You know better than to use your gifts while in the warp, Nuriel.’ Even from real space, the soul of a psyker blazed like a beacon in the warp. The tide of daemons that swam in that place clamoured to those beacons with hungry intent. A moment’s lapse in concentration, the slightest break of faith or oath, and the psyker was doomed. To draw on such power from within the currents of the warp itself was foolish beyond measure. ‘A hand held too close to the flame will burn, Librarian. It is only by the grace of the Emperor that you have not damned us all.’ Amit drew a short blade from the rack and stepped onto the duelling stone.

  ‘Do not lecture me, Chapter Master,’ Nuriel sneered. ‘Have I not proven myself more than capable? My mind and soul are as armoured as the hull around us.’

  ‘Are they? Then I feel no safer. Even the Victus has not endured these long years without breach. Someday, we will ask too much of it.’ Amit let his words and their implication hang in the air a moment. ‘You think your pain greater than any of your brothers?’ He paced around Nuriel as he spoke, gesturing to Vaul and the others. ‘You think it gives you the right to do this?’

  ‘My pain is beyond your knowing.’ Nuriel bunched his fists and took a step towards Amit. ‘The burden of my gifts is great, and now this rage…’ He paused, anger strangling his voice. ‘Yet still you think me weak.’

  ‘Is that what troubles you, brother?’ Amit advanced on Nuriel. ‘You wish to be Master of Librarians?’

  ‘Yes!’ Nuriel roared, his warp-charged muscles straining against his skin. ‘Why? Why did you choose Baros over me?’ Nuriel closed the distance with Amit in a single bound, thrusting his blade towards the Chapter Master’s throat. ‘He is weak!’

  ‘It is not about strength.’ Amit slipped Nuriel’s blade. ‘It is about conviction,’ he said, thundering his fist into the Librarian’s jaw as he angled off. ‘You do not have Baros’s heart.’

  The blow staggered Nuriel. He roared again, eyes flashing with fulgurant energy as he summoned his power.

  ‘No.’ Amit clasped the back of Nuriel’s head and pulled it onto his fist, driving a punch into the Librarian’s face. The blow dented bone, leaving a gnarled imprint in Nuriel’s forehead.

  Nuriel dropped his blade and clutched his head, unable to focus beyond the pain.

  ‘You defeated Menadel and Seraph through your gifts alone. You want to prove your strength, then fight me without them.’ Amit kicked Nuriel in the chest, sending him tumbling backwards. ‘Or sure as the Blood runs in my veins, I will kill you.’

  Nuriel came at Amit in a frenzy of limbs, punching and kicking with all the skill and fury he possessed.

  Amit rode the blows, using his arms and shoulders to exhaust Nuriel’s rage. ‘If that is all you’ve got, brother,’ Amit said as he pushed through the Librarian’s guard to grab his gorget, ‘then perhaps I shall kill you regardless,’ he concluded and headbutted him.

  Nuriel backed off, spitting a gobbet of blood onto the floor. ‘You think you are better than me because Guilliman changed your title, captain? We are Blood Angels. You are master of nothing.’

  Amit’s eyes narrowed. ‘All things change, brother.’

  ‘Except war,’ Nuriel hissed. ‘It has been the same since man could wield a rock.’

  ‘Yes.’ Amit paused, struggling to order his thoughts in the face of his blood lust. ‘We are instruments of war, Nuriel, nothing more. War is why we were created – it is why we live, why we breathe. We are the Emperor’s shields and we are His blades, and we will fight under whichever banner He deems to give us.’ Amit forced the words from his lips, unsure whether he believed them or not.

  ‘I am a son of Sanguinius, a Blood Angel! I will not let Guilliman, you or the Emperor Himself tell me different.’ Nuriel lashed out and kicked Vaul’s body from the platform.

  ‘Sanguinius is dead!’ Amit snapped.

  ‘And how soon we forget his greatness.’

  ‘I stood with our father in countless battles. I knew him as well as any of his sons.’ Amit’s words were barely audible over the growl in his throat. ‘But I will not yield to this grief.’

  ‘Liar!’ Nuriel snarled and threw out his arm. A blade shot from the rack into his grasp. ‘Your grief consumes you. It burns raw like a dying sun.’

  Nuriel attacked. Amit darted forwards inside the blade’s arc. Gripping Nuriel’s weapon arm with both hands, he brought his knee up and spiked it into his abdomen before smashing his head into Nuriel’s face. Amit held him in place, headbutting him again and again until his body went limp and he dropped the sword. Finally, he tossed the Librarian to the ground.

  Nuriel groaned and struggled to his feet, his face broken.

  Amit watched him stand and then kicked his legs out from under him.

  ‘Kill… me, then.’ Nuriel spat the words through mouthfuls of blood.

  ‘No. There is enough death in our future.’ Amit pressed his knee down onto the Librarian’s chest. ‘You are a Flesh Tearer now, Nuriel. Live with it or don’t, but trouble me no more.’ Amit grabbed Nuriel’s head and drove it into the ground. The Librarian went slack.

  Amit rose and made for the chamber’s exit where Druel was waiting, his assault cannon spinning on idle. ‘Have Nuriel and the others taken to the apothecarion. Then have this Baallite slab ground to dust and ejected into the void.’

  ‘What shall I replace it with?’

  Amit stopped at the exit, turning back to look at the ancient stone and the injured Flesh Tearers strewn across it. ‘Nothing.’

  Amit’s mood grew fouler as he walked the corridor. He had not asked to lead them. Their fates had been thrust upon him, their concerns made his. He ground his teeth in frustration and activated the maglift. If he could not find peace in solace, then he would find it as he always had – in blood.

  His armoured boots tensed, locking him to the floor as the platform sped him downwards. He closed his eyes, thankful of the isolation, and listened to the rising beat of his hearts as they sped in time with the maglift’s thrumming. He clenched and unclenched his fists, feeling a growl build in his throat as he pictured what was to come.

  The maglift shuddered to a stop and he stepped off into a l
ightless corridor. Amit paused a moment while his enhanced eyes strained to adjust to the darkness. They could not. The gloom was total, thick and impenetrable, the corridor shrouded by technology that defied even the keenest of auspexes.

  The priests of Mars had made good on their word. The modifications they had made to the Victus were impressive. The deck he walked on existed on no schematic or official record. It was a void in the ship, a place of nothingness. His actions here would not define him, for they would never truly have happened. His deeds would be swallowed by the darkness, stolen away before they could mar his soul.

  Amit paced forwards, unwilling to dwell longer on what he might still owe Mars for its help. He took care, following exactly the route imprinted in his memory, aware that a single misstep would see him fall to his doom amid the bowels of the ship. The space was not serviced by ventilation grilles or air shafts, and the atmosphere was thick with a rank smell that reminded him of gore-soaked trenches and the visceral stench of freshly spilt innards. A row of cells shadowed him as he moved along the corridor. Each of them, he knew, were locked tight, plasma-sealed and psy-warded.

  ‘You should have killed Nuriel.’ Zophal’s voice sounded from the darkness ahead. ‘Your wrath would have been better spent. There are not many remaining here.’

  Amit stopped walking. ‘No. We have lost enough brothers to the enemy, to the Rage. I will not add to that tally.’ Amit took three more paces and stopped. ‘How many remain?’

  Zophal ignored the question in favour of his own. ‘What you said to Nuriel, whose soul were you trying to save? When will you accept that things are how they are? That not everything can be changed by blood and rage?’

  Amit bit back a curse. He wasn’t surprised that Zophal knew; the damnable Chaplain always knew. ‘Save me the sermon, Zophal. It is not why I am here.’

  ‘You have been coming here more frequently of late.’

  Amit grunted at the insinuation. ‘How many are left?’

  ‘Seven. Two in the cell nearest you, a further four spread among those at the end of the corridor, and…’ Zophal cast a glance into the gloom. ‘Omari.’