Blood Angels - The Complete Rafen Omnibus - James Swallow Page 4

  “Sachiel?” he called. “Brother Sachiel?” Although it was a breach of protocol to address a priest in such an informal manner, Rafen spoke without thought and approached him.

  The man gave Rafen a quizzical look. Then abruptly, a thin smile of recognition emerged on his face. Sachiel threw a glance at one of his guards, then back to Rafen. “Can it be?” he asked. “Rafen the Ready, as I live and breathe?”

  Despite himself, Rafen frowned at the nickname from his days as a novice on Baal Secundus. “You are well, Apothecary?”

  Sachiel tapped an armoured finger on his shoulder pauldron. “Time has passed, Brother Rafen. For the glory of Sanguinius and by the grace of our comrade inquisitor, my rank is now that of high priest.”

  Rafen gave him a reverent nod. “Forgive me, lord. It pleases me to see you alive after all these years.”

  “Indeed.” Sachiel replied, with the very smallest hint of pride. Like his brethren, Sachiel’s powered armour was blood red, but as an honoured Sanguinary High Priest, his battle gear was trimmed with lines of white detailing. A number of purity seals were fixed about his waist, beneath a bone-coloured crest of two spread angel wings. Rafen noted the shape of a velvet drawstring bag on his hip; inside, Sachiel would be carrying the traditional symbol of his rank among the Blood Angels, a sacred chalice modelled on the great red grail of Sanguinius.

  Rafen did not dwell on the question of how Sachiel had advanced in rank so quickly during the Bellus’s mission; he was certain that if the verbose priest’s personality had not changed in ten years, he would soon be regaled with the whole tale.

  Sachiel’s smile grew. “This is certainly an omen of good fortune. It is not enough that we paused in our journey through the Empyrean at just the right moment to hear the cries from the Celaeno, but to arrive here and discover our own battle-brothers in need of deliverance…” His hand strayed to the bag on his belt. “The God-Emperor guides us in all things.”

  “As he wills.” Rafen agreed.

  “And yet…” Sachiel seemed not to notice that he had spoken. He studied him carefully. “I sense that your faith has been sorely tested this day, Rafen. I see it in the poise of your stride, the lilt in your voice.”

  Unbidden, a flare of irritation sparked inside the Blood Angel. What could he know of Rafen’s thoughts? “I faced the archenemy, as is my eternal duty, and you say I was tested. You know this within moments of meeting me, despite the fact that we have not laid eyes on one another for a decade?” Rafen found himself falling back into the same patterns of rivalry he and Sachiel had shared as trainees; the two men had never overcome their mutual dislike.

  Sachiel gave a languid nod, his expression laced with a faint air of superiority. Rafen remembered why it was he had never enjoyed the priest’s company. “I do. But I could not expect you to understand the things I have seen during the voyages of the Bellus, Rafen. While you have served Sanguinius in your own way, I have ventured into the very heart of the Xenos and faced the absolute inhuman. Such things change a man, Rafen. They grant you insight.”

  You have not changed at all, Rafen thought, except you may have grown more vainglorious. But instead of voicing these thoughts, he nodded to the priest. “I imagine it must be so.”

  Sachiel’s smile remained fixed, and Rafen was certain that the Sanguinary Priest knew exactly what question was pressing at the Marine’s mind; the thought that had been clamouring to be voiced from the very moment he had heard the name of the Bellus. After a long silence, he spoke again. “I must ask, Sachiel. Rumours have spread throughout the Chapter since the astropaths received word that the Bellus was to return. There is the talk of deaths among the brethren sent to recover the spear.” He paused, the next words heavy and sharp in his chest like rough-hewn lumps of lead. “What became of my brother? Does he still live?”

  Sachiel cocked his head. “Your brother? But are we not all brothers under the wings of Sanguinius, Rafen?”

  “If it pleases you, high priest.” Rafen’s temper flared again, “I would have you tell me what happened to my sibling Arkio.”

  The Apothecary gestured to one of his guards, and the Marine holstered his weapon, reaching up to remove his combat helmet. “The bonds of blood transcend all others.” Sachiel said, quoting a line of scripture from the book of Lemartes, “but no blood runs stronger than that of Sanguinius.”

  Rafen said nothing. Even when they had fought alongside each other as novice brothers, Sachiel had always tried to turn each conversation into a lesson, as if he felt the need to constantly prove his knowledge of Imperial dogma at every opportunity. Rafen preferred to keep his faith a personal issue and illustrate it with deeds, rather than trumpet the words incessantly. At that moment the Marine guard at Sachiel’s side revealed his face.

  His younger brother’s youthful and yet serious countenance stared back at him, and Rafen broke into a broad grin. “Arkio! By the Throne, you’re alive! I had feared the worst.” Arkio gave a rueful smile. “Well met, my brother. I—” Rafen didn’t let his sibling get any further, crushing him into a bear hug with a bark of laughter. Their armour clanked together; and for the first time since he had set foot on Cybele, Rafen’s black mood was forgotten.

  Corvus stepped to one side and came to attention as Koris halted. With his helmet cradled under one arm, the veteran Blood Angel’s vision was only as good as the augmented occulobe grafted to the back of his retinas. Under normal circumstances he would have been able to penetrate the darkness, but here inside the inquisitor’s tent the shadows that fell around him were as deep as the void of space itself. The sergeant wondered if some sort of witchery was at work; he did not know enough of Ramius Stele to glean what powers the inquisitor had at his command. He knew only of the tale of Stele’s honour debt, and the unbreakable ties that made the man a trusted comrade of the Blood Angels—but as with anything that was declared a matter of faith, it was in Koris’ troublesome nature to question it.

  The true story of the debt was known to a select few, and even a seasoned warrior like the sergeant understood it only in the broadest strokes; there had been an incident when the inquisitor was travelling aboard a navy ship with the great Brother-Captain Erasmus Tycho of the Third Company. Allegedly, a daemon had manifested inside the ship’s engine core and Stele had killed it single-handedly when the beast had battered Tycho into unconsciousness. The hereticus agent’s actions had earned him a personal commendation from Commander Dante and the respect of the Legion Astartes.

  Part of the darkness before him shifted—a cloth drew open from another chamber inside the tent’s voluminous folds—and he caught the scent of parchment and oil before a figure stepped into the light. Koris had seen the inquisitor only once before, at a conclave of Blood Angels following the great victory at Thaxted Duchy; then, the sergeant had been one of hundreds of men who heard him speak from a podium. Here and now, he had the immediate sense that Stele remembered him, even though his had been a single face among many.

  “Honoured sergeant.” Stele’s voice was rich and resonant. His bald scalp glittered in the thin yellow light of the glow-globes, making the aquila electoo on his forehead seem bright in comparison. “I am distressed to hear we arrived too late to preserve Captain Simeon and the Governor Virolu.”

  “As am I, honoured inquisitor. The Word Bearers’ attack came without warning. Several brothers lost their lives under their guns, and others now flounder with severe wounds.”

  Stele approached an ornate chair but did not sit. “I have learned that the Celaeno was obliterated by a warship called the Dirge Eterna. I led the Bellus against the foul vessel, but it retreated behind the gas giant and may hide there still.” He absently touched his ear, where a silver purity stud glinted. “I chose to save your lives rather than pursue it.”

  “My men thank you.”

  The inquisitor made a dismissive gesture. “As the Emperor wills. It was a calculated risk, sending empty Thunderhawks from the port to harry the
enemy line from the air. Had the Word Bearers not broken, it would have been for nought.”

  Koris’ expression hardened. “They have not broken. They will regroup and attack again.”

  Stele looked directly at him for the first time. “You are correct, sergeant. The sons of Lorgar do not retreat without good cause, and even now my auxiliaries in orbit are reporting signs of their formations.” He paused, considering something. “I am about to take my leave and return to Bellus, so that I may direct the search for the Dirge Eterna. But I wanted to look into the eyes of the man who held the line at the keep before I departed.” Stele gave a thin, humourless smile. “I see I have little cause for concern.”

  The veteran flashed a glance at Corvus, who stood silently by. “What will be the disposition of my men?”

  Stele turned and walked back toward the other part of the tent, pausing only to recover a pict-plate. He gave Koris a sideways look. “I am placing the Sanguinary Priest Sachiel in command on the surface. You will obey his orders as you would mine.”

  “And those orders are?”

  “Hold.” Stele said as he walked away, his back to the Blood Angel.

  The shuttle cut the air with a crackling roar as it blazed into the clouds on a white spear of flame. Arkio watched it go with a reverent cast on his face. “Lord Stele returns to our barge,” he noted. “I think the enemy counter-attack shall not be long in coming.”

  The pair of them stood alone on the ferrocrete apron. Rafen studied his younger brother without answering. His mind picked over the memories of the last time they had spoken; it had not gone well on that day. Arkio had told him of his acceptance into the Bellus expeditionary force and Rafen had disagreed with his choice. Such a mission was for seasoned Marines, he argued, and Arkio was anything but that. Although Arkio was Rafen’s junior by a few years, they had become Blood Angels at the same time. Nevertheless the elder brother Rafen could not shake the duty that he had sworn to his father as a child: that he would protect Arkio for as long as he lived. They parted with cross words between them, but on the morning of the Bellus’s launch, Rafen had swallowed his pride and made peace with Arkio’s choice. If they served in the same company, Arkio would forever be seen as a youth in comparison with Rafen, so until he stepped from his elder’s shadow, Arkio felt he would never achieve the fullness of his potential. And so they parted with a salute, each man proud of the other, but secretly afraid that they would never meet again.

  “You’ve changed,” Rafen said at length, “and yet, you have not.” He chuckled. “My brother has matured while he was away from my stewardship.”

  “True enough.” Arkio noted, not without a touch of challenge in his voice. “I’ve shed blood on countless worlds and faced more foes than I thought possible. This and more, brother.”

  Rafen accepted that. “You make me proud, Arkio. Proud that we share a bloodline as much as we are warriors in the name of the Golden Throne.” He hesitated, his voice thickening. “I hoped… I hoped that I would not see my end until I learned of yours, brother. This very day I feared that I was moments away from the Emperor’s peace, and nothing vexed me more than the thought I would not know the fate of my kinsman.”

  “You know it now, brother.” Arkio said carefully. “So does this mean you will seek out death?”

  Rafen gave him a sharp look. Arkio’s words were curiously barbed, his manner outwardly calm, but with a cold glitter dancing in his eyes. He truly has changed, Rafen thought, and perhaps in ways that hide themselves from a first glance.

  The Blood Angel pushed his musings away. How could he have expected the callow youth of ten years gone by not to mature and grow hardened by the ordeal? He had no doubt that Arkio was probably looking at him in the same fashion, wary of a man who at once was his blood relative and a stranger.

  “My fate will come to me without me having to look for it.” Rafen said with mock lightness. “Perhaps it already has.”

  “Perhaps—” Arkio began, but then his words died in his throat. Both he and his brother froze as the wind brought a faint clatter to their ears.

  “Bolter fire.” Rafen snapped, and grabbed his weapon. Arkio mirrored his actions, and the two brothers broke into a run, toward the port proper.

  Brass leaves forming the bridge’s iris hatch sighed open to admit the inquisitor and his retinue. The two honour guards immediately stepped into alcoves either side of the door, and Stele’s lexmechanic and trio of servo-skulls hovered close by.

  “Captain Ideon,” the inquisitor addressed the Blood Angel’s officer wired into Bellus’s command throne. “Status?”

  “Under way, lord.” The Space Marine’s voice was a guttural snarl that issued not from his lips, but from a bulbous voxcoder implanted in his neck. “We will reach the orbit of the gas giant in moments.”

  Stele examined the view ahead in the vast holosphere that dominated the wide control deck. The Cybele moon was depicted as a small, featureless ball to one side, dwarfed by the mass of the supergiant planet that forever held it locked in a tidal embrace.

  “Contact,” said a servitor to his right. “Capital ship, deceleration curve evident.”

  Inside the sphere, the image remained static. “Where?” Stele demanded, gesturing at the space ahead. “Where is it?”

  “Astern.” The display flickered before resolving into a larger-scale view, which showed the planet far behind them. A blinking glyph formed in close orbit.

  “It’s the Ogre Lord,” Ideon noted. “A grand cruiser, Repulsive-class. They must have been hiding out above the pole, waiting for us to break orbit.”

  “Then where is the Dirge Eternal,” Stele snapped, even as new detections bloomed into life on the holosphere. The cruiser they had been pursuing was now emerging from behind the gas giant with two more ships in line formation.

  “Confirm, Dirge Eterna and unidentified Idolator-class raiders on intercept course,” droned the sense-servitor. “Advise condition on battle stations.”

  “Rot them, they planned this!” Ideon spat static. “Shall we engage, my lord?”

  Stele gave a brisk nod. “Weapons free, captain. They’ll burn for their temerity.” About the bridge, gun-helots began a litany of prayers as they sought firing solutions for the battle barge’s missile batteries.

  The finger-thick cables feeding into Ideon’s skull brought with them vox traffic from the surface of Cybele and sensor readings of innumerable landers falling from the central hull of the Ogre Lord. “Sir, I read a massive drop assault in progress on planet… Without orbital cover, the men on the ground—”

  “They will fight and they will die.” Stele said. “For the glory of the God-Emperor and Sanguinius.”

  On Cybele the Word Bearers boiled out from behind the marble tombstones and low sepulchres in a tide of screaming, chanting ruby. Man-forms in pitted, ancient armour turned the manicured lawns black in every place where their clawed boots fell. The toothed tracks of their Rhinos ground the grave markers of brave men into powder behind them.

  Rafen found Koris at the spearhead. The veteran’s gun was hot with constant fire; his crimson greaves were dashed with licks of polluted blood. From the corner of his eye, Rafen watched Arkio move and shoot, pause and reload, without a single gesture or movement wasted. He grinned; he would look forward to hearing his sibling’s tales of battle when this was over.

  “How did they cross the bridge?” he said aloud, discharging a burst into a pack of turbulent enemy hymnal-servitors.

  “The point is moot.” Koris retorted. “It matters little where we kill them—”

  “Just as long as we kill them,” said Rafen, switching his bolter over to single-shot mode. He paced rounds into the face and chest of a Chaos Marine emerging from a sluggish Chimera transport.

  “Listen!” Nearby, Brother Alactus was calling out. “Do you hear it?”

  Rafen strained his senses to pick out the noise from amongst the crash of bolters and the foul cacophon
y of the Word Bearer’s exaltations. “Thrusters!” Alactus shouted. “Listen! Our deliverance falls from the skies for the second time today!”

  Arkio paused, replacing a spent sickle magazine. “I think not,” he said grimly.

  Something in the tone of Arkio’s voice made Rafen pause and look skyward. From the thin grey morass of Cybele’s clouds came a myriad of iron teardrops, each one glowing cherry-red with the displaced heat of re-entry. Rafen heard Koris curse under his breath, as the skies above turned black with enemy landers.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The Ogre Lord spat murder and flame across the surface of Cybele, raining destruction over the grasslands and shallow mountain ranges. To the far north-west, where the great Valkyrie towers climbed skyward, it sent atomic warheads and fuel-air explosives laced with poison. The minarets were the glory of generations of memorial artisans, commissioned by the Adepta Sororitas to venerate those lost in the savage Phaedra Campaign; each one was hollow, their innards a network of acoustic channels cut from raw marble. In the high season, the wind would sing through them in perfect tones of mourning. But no pilgrims stood before the towers as the archenemy’s nuclear retribution bloomed overhead, and no human ears heard the final, awful screams that were forced from within them, in the seconds before the shock wave of super-heated air scoured them from the face of the planetoid. Closer to the starport, low-yield munitions and finely targeted lance strikes fell on the Imperium forces. Rafen was dazzled as a discharge ate into the ferrocrete apron. In an instant, the rock flashed to toxic vapour and air molecules crashed as heat split them into atoms. A skirmish line of Blood Angels’ tanks caught in the weapon’s footprint became blackened humps of slag, featureless and smouldering. Overhead, precise discs of sky shone through the wide holes the beam weapons punched in the clouds.