The Test of Faith - Thomas Parrott Read online

  They erupted into a swarm of foes. The impact of the grenades was immediately obvious in torn flesh and spilt blood. It was the only thing that kept them from being mobbed instantly. Here, the true foulness of the genestealers was laid bare for all to see. Not just in subverting the loyalties of the populace, or in their own xenos nature. No, the worst of it was the corruption of the holy human form that they perpetrated.

  The bulk of their foes were nightmare hybrids of various degrees. In some it showed merely in scaling around inhuman eyes, or tongues that hung from distended jaws. Others were far worse, with multiple arms and flesh bulging with alien carapace. The very sight of them filled Raguel with disgust and hatred.

  He raised his plasma pistol as he strode forward, firing into the mass of horrors. Where the blazing blasts landed they superheated flesh, ripping bodies apart as the water in them erupted to steam. All around he could hear his brothers joining him, the roar of their bolters sending explosive rounds to scythe through the foe.

  Then the enemy had recovered and the onslaught began. A woman in worker’s garb charged him with a chattering autopistol, her flesh tinged with purple. Raguel caught her as she raised her blade to strike, his mace’s power field flashing and smashing her to the ground a broken wreck.

  ‘Emperor, bring ruin upon our foes!’ the Interrogator-Chaplain shouted. It was the beginning of one of the Litanies of Hate taught in the Reclusiam.

  ‘Ave Imperator!’ bellowed the Dark Angels around him as they battled their twisted foes.

  ‘Emperor, bring ruin upon our foes! Hear us, lord and master!’ Raguel continued.

  A snarling monster with three arms lunged at him, its lips punctured by the too many sharp teeth in its mouth. Its hands were full of a snarling, heavy ice-cutter. The Dark Angel sidestepped the charge, decapitating the hybrid with a well-placed pistol shot as it passed.

  ‘Ave Imperator!’ came the callback.

  A small rag-wrapped figure with a muscled tail protruding from its covering hurled a demolition charge at him. The world turned white for a split second as his rosarius turned aside the force of the blast. One of his brothers nearby was not so fortune, his armour shattered and his flesh pulped.

  Raguel channelled his rage into his words. ‘Emperor, Master of Mankind!’

  ‘Let us be the ruin of your foes!’ the Dark Angels chorused.

  A deadly-looking brute with one hand clutching a sword of bone and the other wielding a fang-tipped flesh lash closed in. Raguel caught the sweep of the ossein blade on his crozius. When he tried to bring his pistol to bear, however, the lash whipped around his arm and snapped tight. Strange energies pulsed into his limb through the connection, bringing with it such agony that his muscles spasmed uncontrollably. The plasma pistol fell from nerveless fingers.

  ‘Lord of Victory! Saviour of Humanity!’ growled Raguel, disregarding the pain.

  He exerted his transhuman strength with a heave, knocking the bonesword out wide. Then he lunged into the gap and hammered his skull-visage directly into the corrupted champion’s face. Bone shattered and flesh pulped as blood spurted across his helmet and chest. It might have been dead already. He caught it with an upswing of his crozius, the blow lifting it clear off the ground and sending it hurtling back into its allies.

  ‘Emperor upon the Golden Throne!’ he thundered victoriously. Gore ran in rivulets down his mask.

  ‘Grant us the power of your glory!’ roared his brothers.

  Raguel and his fellow Dark Angels were fighting as hard as they could, but they were being overrun. There were simply too many of their foes within the command centre. Two more of the Intercessors were foundering in the flood, dragged down by the mass of their enemies and cut apart with weaponised tools. Hadariel was hard-pressed by a pack of them lunging at him with razor knives. They swarmed him in a frenzy, seeking weak places in his armour where they could draw blood.

  The Interrogator-Chaplain turned to move in that direction. ‘Glory everlasting to the Master–’

  His words were snatched from his lips as a wave of power slammed into him. It had a terrible presence to it and carried with it a pain that made the feel of the alien lash pale by comparison. Each nerve in his body was alight with fire. Arcs of etheric power sizzled across the surface of his armour as he staggered under the onslaught.

  Through blurred vision he could barely make out his assailant. It stood out from the crowd, its swollen cranium pulsing with unholy power. A staff tipped in shimmering gems was thrust in his direction, the tip of it crackling with the same amethyst energies that had waylaid him. Raguel took a step in its direction, pushing against the pain like the current of a flooded river. Each movement carried a cost in terrible suffering. He drove on anyway.

  Without his pistol, there was no way to strike back from afar. The Interrogator-Chaplain knew he had to close with the xenos psyker if he was to survive. Yet it did not matter. There were limits even to what a Space Marine could withstand. He fell to one knee with a crunch of ceramite and forced himself back up. His will was powerful, but it was only a matter of time before his mind collapsed.

  ‘Raguel!’ roared a familiar voice.

  Hadariel, he thought, but his vision was going now, narrowing to a red point. Then suddenly the pain was gone. It was like surging up from the depths of icy waters to reach a sunlit surface. The alien presence in his mind vanished, and his vision cleared. Hadariel had abandoned defending himself to try to save him. He had fought his way towards the xenos witch, bleeding as he went from the knives that found gaps in his armour plates.

  The enemy psyker had been forced to transfer its attention towards Raguel’s pupil. Now the dreadful energies consumed Hadariel instead. Raguel was close now, however, his single-minded pursuit of his foe having driven him on through the melee and the pain. He lunged forward with all his might, smashing through the final rank of corrupted bodyguards. The xenos had only time to turn towards him with rising terror, its mouth opening and eyes blazing with arcane powers. Then his crozius rose and fell, shattering its body and sending it broken to the ground.

  Raguel wasted no time in exultation now. He turned and charged anew into the swarm where Hadariel had collapsed. They scattered at the impact. Those who did not flee fast enough were hurried on their way with bone-shattering swings of his crozius. He caught one with his empty hand and slung it to the ground so hard that its head dashed open upon impact. Then he stood in the momentary gap he had created, arms wide in a challenge that dared any foe to try him.

  That was when more of the hatches blew in. More Dark Angels poured into the bridge, shattering the flanks of the genestealer onslaught. With this psyker-master dead and the tide turning, those that remained began to flee through whatever exits they could find. Escape into the darkness and strike again later, that was the way of the cult.

  Raguel knelt and lifted his badly wounded friend. He carried him over to sit him gently against the wall.

  ‘Raguel,’ wheezed the younger Chaplain. He reached up and fumbled his helmet off, revealing a face matted with blood from his nose and mouth.

  ‘Be at ease, brother. You fought with valour and are badly hurt.’ Raguel rested his hand on Hadariel’s shoulder for a moment before turning to face the approaching Sergeant Raum.

  ‘My lord Chaplain,’ said Raum. ‘We must push on and continue to clear the miner.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Raguel. ‘Hadariel is in no shape to continue. It is best that we remain here. That will allow me to ensure this place is cleansed of any moral contaminants as well.’ The Interrogator-Chaplain swept his gaze across the bridge-turned-battleground, strewn with bodies and alien artefacts.

  ‘As you say, my lord. I shall have an Apothecary sent as soon as we reach a place where the jamming has eased.’ Raum made the sign of the aquila.

  ‘Thank you, sergeant,’ replied the Interrogator-Chaplain.

  The s
ergeant departed, as did the rest of their brethren, to continue hunting the xenos throughout the vehicle. Raguel strode to where he could see his plasma pistol lying on the ground. He knelt to pick it up. It was covered in blood, but seemed otherwise undamaged.

  ‘Raguel,’ rasped Hadariel. ‘I remember.’

  The Interrogator-Chaplain froze.

  ‘I remember… something. Something terrible. My head aches with the edges of it. I went to Malmar. The Chapter… There is a darkness eating us, Raguel. I cannot…’ The younger Chaplain coughed, spraying blood down the front of his armour.

  Raguel closed his eyes tightly. His hands closed around two objects from the floor, and he rose back to his full height. He holstered his pistol at his side and walked to kneel in front of his brother.

  ‘You are merely hurt, Hadariel. That xenos filth got into your head. You cannot let it rattle you,’ he said.

  ‘No… It shook something loose. I can hear the waves. I can hear them… They did something to me, brother…’ Hadariel reached up to grip Raguel by the upper arm.

  ‘Be at ease,’ soothed Raguel. ‘All is well.’

  Then he slashed across Hadariel’s throat with the knife he had collected from the floor. Blood spilled, rich and red. The Interrogator-Chaplain gripped his brother tightly as the other Space Marine struggled. Then it was over.

  Raguel sat back. He threw the knife away amongst the bodies with a convulsive movement. His hands were soaked with blood. It was all red. There was no way to tell this latest coat from that of the genestealers.

  He knew, though. He would always know.

  ‘Can we be certain that it was the exposure to the alien psyker that caused the lapse? Not merely a side effect of Primaris physiology?’ Asmodai asked.

  The chambers of the Rock were cold and dim. They were in the deep levels, where the screams could be heard at all hours.

  Raguel glanced to the other Interrogator-Chaplain and frowned. ‘We can never be certain of anything, save war and death.’

  The senior Chaplain snorted. ‘Either way it is a flaw. The mindwipe was broken too easily. We will have to be cautious in the future. More strenuous methods may be required to ensure silence amongst the failures.’

  ‘Failures…’ Raguel said quietly.

  ‘Hadariel was given every opportunity to succeed,’ Asmodai said flatly.

  ‘I was not allowed to oversee his trial,’ Raguel said.

  ‘You knew him too well,’ came the swift reply. ‘We cannot permit personal bias to allow weakness into our highest echelons.’

  ‘I was not even allowed to be present!’ barked Raguel. He composed himself quickly. ‘The first Primaris Chaplain to be tested to join our ranks, and he fails under mysterious circumstances. Some would call that suspect.’

  ‘Do you question the wisdom of the Inner Circle?’ rumbled Asmodai coldly.

  ‘Spare me your intimidating theatrics, Asmodai. I did as I was ordered. Hadariel is dead. My commitment to our cause is not in question.’ Raguel knew his hands had tightened into fists. He did not care. ‘I merely regret the loss of a good warrior.’

  ‘Of course. As we all do,’ was all Asmodai said. ‘You will be reassigned soon. There is work to be done.’ He turned and departed.

  ‘There always is,’ Raguel said wearily to himself. ‘The work never ends.’ He departed as well, the screams of agony and horror ringing all around him.

  About the Author

  Thomas Parrott is the kind of person who reads RPG rule books for fun. He fell in love with Warhammer 40,000 when he was fifteen and read the short story ‘Apothecary’s Honour’ in the Dark Imperium anthology, and has never looked back. ‘Spiritus In Machina’ was his first story for Black Library, and he has since written ‘Salvage Rites’, ‘Fates and Fortunes’ and the novella Isha’s Lament.

  An extract from Legacy of Caliban.

  How did the Lion die?

  It was a simple question, innocently asked, and Brother Annael had wondered why, in over four hundred years of service to the Dark Angels Chapter, it had not occurred to him before. It was the question that had propelled him from an assault squad in the Fifth Company to the ranks of the Second Company, the lauded Ravenwing, and that was when he had found out the truth.

  Horus, arch-traitor, thrice-cursed, had murdered the primarch of the Dark Angels.

  So he had been told by Brother Malcifer, Chaplain of the Ravenwing, when Annael had been inducted into the lore of the Second Company. Annael had understood immediately why such knowledge was so closely guarded; that the Dark Angels had been brought to the brink of destruction by other Space Marines had been a testing revelation.

  He had known that there were always the weak-willed, even amongst the Adeptus Astartes, who put themselves and their ambition above the call of duty and their oaths of dedication to the Emperor. He had fought against such heretics on eight different occasions, bringing the justice of death to them with chainsword and bolt pistol, but had never suspected the full horror of the temptations that draw good warriors away from the service of the Emperor.

  Weeping, Annael had listened as Malcifer had related the tale of the Horus Heresy, a cataclysmic civil war that had threatened to destroy the Imperium at its birth. The Dark Angels, the First Legion, greatest of the Emperor’s warriors, had fought against the evil of Horus and those primarchs who had been corrupted by his silken-tongued promises, and they had triumphed. The victory had been won at great cost, and Lion El’Jonson, the primarch of the Dark Angels had given his life to defeat the enemy.

  Now that he was a member of the Ravenwing, it was Annael’s duty to hold to that knowledge and keep it as a sacred fire in his heart to lend strength to his sword arm and to fuel his courage in battle. Armed with such understanding, it was the Ravenwing that sought out those traitors who had turned on the Emperor, so that they might be brought to account for their sins. As a Space Marine of the Dark Angels, Annael had never lacked conviction, honour or valour, but as a chosen warrior of the Ravenwing he now understood the importance of discretion and brotherhood even more sharply.

  As the attack sirens sounded again across the strike cruiser Implacable Justice, Annael considered the sacrifice of the Lion and knew that he was willing to make the same sacrifice to protect the Chapter and the Emperor’s dominion. His existence was not for a normal life, but to be an instrument of the Dark Angels’ vengeance against those who had so wronged them.

  While he pondered his change of perspective, Annael continued with his pre-battle preparations. He had already donned his armour, allowing the adepts of the Techmarines to perform their consecrations to the Machine-God before attending to his mount.

  That machine, called Black Shadow, was as much a symbol of his position in the Ravenwing as the emblem on his knee and the markings on his shoulder pad. In the Scout Company he had been taught to honour his weapons and his armour, and they had served him well for four centuries of battle. Now that same honour extended to his steed, and Annael was attentive in his application of the unguents to the engine and suspension, and conscientious as he spoke the dedications to the spirit of the motorbike.

  It was a fine mount, and it had a history no less acclaimed than his own. In the yellow light of the boarding bay’s lamps the black enamelled fairing gleamed with polish that he had applied himself only an hour before. A serf of the armoury was checking the belt feeds of the twin bolters housed in the front cowling above the handlebars, muttering invocations that would ward away jams and misfires.

  ‘Are you excited, brother?’ Still with a hint of his Lauderian accent, Zarall’s deep voice was unmistakable. Annael looked around and saw his squadron-brother standing at the back of Black Shadow, his helm in one hand so that his features could be seen. Zarall had a broad chin and rounded cheeks, a flat nose and bright, blue eyes, and his head was topped with white hair cropped almost to the scalp. His black armour w
as festooned with purity and devotional seals – strips of parchment on which were written the sacred oaths and texts of the Chapter, fastened with red wax. There were twenty-eight in all, each awarded by the Grand Master of Chaplains, Sapphon, for heroic deeds and clarity of faith; Annael had six and was one hundred and fifty years Zarall’s senior.

  ‘I am always excited by the prospect of purposeful endeavour,’ replied Annael, standing up. Zarall raised his eyebrows doubtfully and Annael relented in his attempt at nonchalance. ‘All right, I feel as I did the first time I dropped as a full battle-brother. It is as if the last four hundred years had never happened.’

  ‘You have a fine steed and attend well to its requirements, there is no need for apprehension,’ said Zarall.

  ‘I did not say that I was apprehensive,’ replied Annael. He patted the saddle of Black Shadow. ‘I said I was excited. I am accustomed to the drills and procedures of the squadron. I have no doubt that I will acquit myself with honour and courage.’

  ‘Yes, but you are to be blessed on your first drop with us,’ said Zarall. ‘Grand Master Sammael himself will lead the attack. Be sure that his eye will fall upon the deeds of his newest recruit.’

  ‘And his eye will see only that which pleases him,’ Annael assured the other Space Marine. ‘Did Sergeant Cassiel ask you to ensure I was aware of the importance of my inaugural performance?’

  ‘Not at all, brother,’ said Zarall. The Space Marine smiled, realising that his questions were intrusive. ‘I meant no disrespect. I wished to pay my regards and tell you that I am pleased to have you serve as my squadron-brother. The Emperor is equally pleased to count you amongst the First.’

  Annael grasped the hand that Zarall offered, acknowledging the apology and the praise. It was unbecoming of a Dark Angel to feel prideful, but Annael gained some satisfaction from his battle-brother’s confidence.

  ‘We shall bring honour to the squadron and the company, together,’ Annael said. Another armoured figure appeared behind Zarall. ‘Brother Araton, have you word yet of when we embark?’