Blood Rite - Rachel Harrison Read online

  Donato’s hearts thunder at the memory of it. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then what troubles you most is the idea that they might fall, and that you might see it.’

  Donato thinks of the dream. Of a different world. A different brother.

  ‘Yes,’ he says, again.

  His brother nods. ‘It is an ugly thing,’ he says. ‘No matter how often you see it.’

  Donato finds himself at a loss at the words and the honesty in them.

  ‘Ugly as it might be, though, we cannot turn away from it. To do so would be more of a failure than falling.’ That trace of honesty is gone now. Donato’s brother is back to being inscrutable.

  Back to judging.

  ‘I do not plan on turning away,’ Donato says. ‘Not from this, or from anything else.’

  THE SHRINE OF SANGUIS GLORIA, THEN…

  ‘The dream you were shown. It was of Perdicia, wasn’t it?’

  Phaello’s words are softly spoken, even though the vox-channel he is using to speak to Donato is private. The two of them tread up from the Heart side by side. This path is lined with arched windows through which Donato can see the storm outside and the constant flares of lightning. Rain runs upwards on the stained glass, like tears being shed in reverse.

  Donato nods. ‘It is always Perdicia.’

  The two of them have spoken of it before, because Donato has had no other dreams since that day. On the rare occasions he truly sleeps, that particular failure is always waiting for him.

  ‘I saw it too,’ Phaello says. ‘Though it was changed. Zalak twisted it, and had you die before I could reach you.’

  Phaello had been the one to find Donato half-dead in the Temple of the Emperor Ascended and to call the teleport that saved his life. That is why Donato told him of the dreams, something that even Darrago does not know.

  ‘I will kill him here,’ Donato says. ‘As I should have then. He will pay for the dream. For Perdicia. For everything he has done.’

  ‘May I speak plainly, brother-captain?’ Phaello asks.

  Donato looks at him, knowing that Phaello’s words will set his temper afire, whether they are meant to or not. He knows, too, that is why he must listen to them.

  ‘Always,’ he says.

  Phaello nods. ‘I have seen you do great things,’ he says. ‘Marshal armies. Command a company-wide assault with ease. I have seen you oversee teleport strikes and orbital assaults and turn the tides of dozens of wars. You did those things because you have always been able to see the battle in its entirety, even from the ground. You always see everything. The whole battle, and not just the pieces that make it up.’

  ‘You asked to speak plainly, Radst, so do it. Get to your point.’

  Phaello’s face is hidden behind his helm, but Donato hears the concern in his voice clearly enough.

  ‘I do not think that in this you are capable of seeing everything. I think that you are driven to kill Zalak, and nothing else. That you are letting revenge decide things for you.’

  Donato has always asked for honesty from his brothers, but it does not mean that Phaello’s words do not stoke his temper. Especially because, at his heart, he knows them to be true.

  ‘Zalak means to take Sanyctus from us and use him to complete his rite,’ Phaello says. ‘If he does that, we fail. The shrine falls. The chalice is lost. We are acting according to the enemy’s design and being moved like pieces in a game.’

  ‘What would you have me do?’ Donato asks. ‘Turn back? Leave Sanyctus behind? Neither of those things are an option, brother. Nor can we await Zalak. His armies are endless, and we are all that is left. Our only option is to go forward.’

  ‘I know. I am not suggesting retreat. I am just telling you what it is that I see.’

  ‘Because you think I cannot,’ Donato says.

  Phaello pauses, as if he is loath to speak his next words.

  ‘Can you, brother-captain?’ Phaello asks.

  Donato hears the rain and the thunder and the whispers. The old wound in his chest aches furiously. The red line in his helm’s display climbs. He blinks, and sees Zalak’s grinning face, as he has every time since they left the Heart. He remembers how they ended up facing one another alone on Perdicia. He had planned the battle so carefully. Considered every eventuality. Acted reactively and rationally. He had ordered his brothers to evacuate the innocents, or to hold critical locations. To fight elsewhere, because he had considered himself sufficient to defeat Zalak. He had thought it a precise application of force.

  And he had been wrong.

  Donato exhales a long, slow breath.

  ‘Fifty years have passed since Perdicia and my failure. I was short-sighted that day. Arrogant. I am not the same as I was then. None of us are.’

  ‘That is a truth,’ Phaello says. ‘But the failure is not yours alone to bear. Everything we do, we do together. That is the way of a brotherhood.’

  Donato nods. He knows that Phaello speaks the truth. That that is the strength of the Adeptus Astartes, but it does not change the way he feels when he thinks of Perdicia. It does not change the ache of that knotted scar.

  ‘I appreciate your counsel, brother,’ Donato says. ‘But today will not end as that day did. I will not allow it.’

  Outside, the clouds bloom with light. They are twisted and bloated, almost appearing like great, mocking faces. A second later, thunder booms, and the shrine tremors around them. Donato holds tight to his weapons.

  ‘This time, it will be different,’ he says. ‘This time, I will not fail.’

  Zalak’s storm has found its way inside the shrine. Violet lightning crackles over the marble and arcs to Donato’s Terminator plate as they push for the lifter platform that will take them up to the Crown. Boiling clouds hang in the vaulted space. Thunder booms, and rain falls inside, rain that is black and thick and paints trails across everything it touches. With the storm come creatures, not half-formed things like they fought in the lower levels, but creatures that are whole and strong and buoyed by the storm. Donato’s helm display is nearly solid crimson with threats.

  ‘We are running out of time, brother-captain,’ Phaello says. ‘We need to reach the Crown.’

  His voice is calm, as it always is, but Donato knows Phaello to be troubled all the same. He feels it too, because of the rite Zalak is conducting and because there will come a point when the shrine and the world itself are beyond repair. Beyond saving. Something that broken cannot be made perfect again.

  He thinks of the message.

  If the shrine cannot be saved, then it must fall.

  The daemons move for him, bringing with them a cloud of perfumed, choking smoke. They trail it with their every movement, shedding flakes of ash that glitter like broken glass. One of them smiles, exposing pointed, even teeth, and strikes at Donato with its massive, clawed hand. He turns it aside with his power fist and fires his combi-bolter into the daemon’s head and chest. It discorporates, blowing that glittering ash across his armour, where it scores and chips the paint. Thunder peals. Ahead, through the melee, the rain and the shadows, he sees Sanyctus cut through another of the daemons with a strangled yell that echoes louder than the thunderclap of the creature’s death. He is already moving for his next target. His heart rate is a jagged line in Donato’s helm display.

  ‘You are right,’ Donato says to Phaello. ‘We are running out of time.’

  Ivaro and Lurani move in step with Sanyctus, using their shields to turn aside the daemons resolving from smoke all around them. The creatures are grey-skinned and black-eyed with maws of pointed teeth and cutting claws in the place of their hands. When Donato takes his next breath, he catches the scent of dried flowers and gravedirt, even through his helm’s filters. He fires on them. Takes glancing blows from those claws across his shoulders. Ahead, Maeklus’ flamer lights the chamber. The vox is fouled with atonal, contented humming as the daemons move and twist and cut, almost too quickly to see.

  Quick enough to slip through Ivaro’s guard.
/>
  ‘Brother!’ Lurani shouts.

  Donato hears Ivaro take a breath over the vox, but his words are stolen from him as one of the daemon’s hooked claws severs his shield arm at the elbow. His shield falls with a crash and Ivaro cries out, but that sound too is stolen as the daemon’s other claw severs his spine. The creature opens its maw and sings a twisted dirge as Ivaro falls to his knees.

  ‘No!’ Lurani roars.

  He turns and slams his storm shield into the daemon, shattering it with the force of the blow, before finishing it with a strike from his thunder hammer. He holds guard over Ivaro with his shield raised and his shoulders set.

  ‘Keep moving!’ Phaello orders him.

  Lurani rasps a breath over the vox. ‘I will not abandon him.’

  Around him, the daemons laugh in their splintered voices.

  Such pain, they sing, and they lunge for him.

  Lurani braces, but they never reach him, because Phaello does not allow it. Donato has never known another soul as keen-eyed as Phaello. As clear-headed. One of the daemons goes over backwards, a smoking hole made of its chest. Another is spun by his second shot. Its head disappears in a burst of glittering ashes. A third is discorporated mid leap as Phaello’s rounds punch through it. Two more end on Sanyctus’ claws. The smell of flowers and death is cloying and choking. Underneath that are the whispers in reverse. Ever-present. Dizzying.

  Donato turns aside another strike and the daemon he is facing hums through its pointed teeth. That same contented noise. It goes to cut him like Ivaro was cut, but Donato saw how it was done. He catches hold of the claw and snaps it before firing his own bolter into the daemon’s body until it too bursts and disappears, taking the humming sound with it. It is replaced by another sound. The urgent ring of Ivaro’s life signs as they falter.

  ‘Keep going,’ Ivaro slurs. ‘Before they return.’

  Lurani shakes his head. ‘I cannot,’ he says, as Donato and Phaello reach them. ‘Not without you.’ Lurani has locked his thunder hammer to his armour and he has his hand outstretched. ‘Get up,’ he says, though he must know that Ivaro cannot.

  ‘Can’t,’ Ivaro says. ‘Nothing works. Not my legs, nor my arms.’

  The damage is bad. Too bad for a sus-an coma, going by the vitals in Donato’s helm display. It is only the false muscle structure of Ivaro’s armour keeping him upright.

  That, and his stubbornness.

  ‘Go. Finish it.’ Ivaro smiles, showing bloody teeth. ‘Archangels.’

  Then Ivaro’s head lolls, and the flatline alarm rings in Donato’s ears. Lurani’s hand drops to his side.

  ‘Archangels,’ he says, to his dead shield-brother.

  The lifter platform hangs on massive links of chain, slung around cogwheels ten times Donato’s own height. The way up is lit by flashes of lightning. Wind howls down from the summit, far above, rattling those chain links together. It carries with it that ceaseless whispering and slick black rain that puddles on the platform and spills over the edges. The lever to start the mechanism is so outscaled and heavy that it takes both Victorno and Darrago to engage it. Donato remembers the priests using gene-bulked, augmented servitors to do it when he last stood here.

  ‘Why haven’t they cut the chains?’ Phaello asks. He looks up into the darkness with his storm bolter raised as the lifter starts to grind slowly upwards. The sound is tectonic.

  Sanyctus stands at his side, flexing his fingers absently inside his lightning claw gauntlets. He looks up into the dark, too. His one good eye is narrowed. ‘Because of me,’ he says. ‘All of this is because of me.’

  ‘No,’ Donato says. ‘All of this is because of Zalak.’

  Sanyctus shakes his head. ‘They seek my blood,’ he says. ‘That is why they have not cut the chains. That is why they have not collapsed the levels and buried us.’

  ‘Then I suppose I should be thanking you,’ Ebellius says. ‘Being buried once in a lifetime is quite enough.’

  Sanyctus glares at him. ‘We are playing into their hands. Moving according to Zalak’s plan. He means to thin our numbers, to weaken us until I am all that is left.’ He takes a breath that sounds painful. ‘Maeklus was right. I should have been left behind.’

  ‘We leave none behind,’ Darrago says. ‘You know that.’

  The Company Ancient is watching over Sanyctus as he always is. Darrago puts out a hand to lay it on his shoulder guard, but Sanyctus shrugs him free.

  ‘I am a danger,’ he says, and his words are jagged. They run together in the way of delirium. ‘Do not tell me different. I see the way you look at me. As if I am an animal. As if I am already lost.’

  ‘Addicio,’ Darrago begins.

  ‘No,’ Sanyctus snarls. ‘Do not lie to me. Arthemio is dead. Alfeo and Vytali. Ivaro. They are all dead, and I am still standing. It is not right.’

  Victorno slams the haft of his thunder hammer on the deck of the lifter. He takes a step towards Sanyctus. ‘That is enough,’ Victorno says, warningly. ‘I won’t have those words. Not from you.’

  Sancytus shakes his head. The movement is almost spasmodic. He is shaking as if he is going into shock. ‘It. Is not. Right.’

  There is a moment shorter than the space between heartbeats where Donato glimpses the dream again. Feels the pain he felt at seeing his brothers murder one another.

  ‘Enough,’ Donato bellows, over the whispering that has grown so loud now. Louder than the movement of the lifter platform or the peal of thunder. Louder than his hearts, drumming in his ears. ‘We all know what it is to be Angels. What it takes, and how it tests us. What it means to fail those tests.’

  He looks to his Archangels in their burned and battered Terminator plate. Each with hundreds of glories to their name, and scars enough to match the stories.

  ‘But we are more than just angels,’ Donato says. ‘We are brothers. We are blood. We face every task and every test together.’

  His words silence his brothers and break the moment of confrontation. Phaello looks to him and nods, but Donato is distracted. He realises he can no longer hear the whispers. Not because they have stopped, but because they are being drowned out. Smothered, by a roar from above. Donato looks up as a vortex of warpfire opens above them at the summit of the lifter channel. The rain is replaced by motes of flame that fall and stick and cling to the lifter platform as the spiral of fire descends. In the tumult, Donato sees yawning maws and leering eyes, all aflame.

  ‘Brace!’ he yells, as the warpfire vortex surrounds them.

  Creatures resolve from the fire. Carry it with them. Spew it from their wide-open jaws. It trails from their eyes. The heat stings Donato’s own eyes and steals the air from his lungs, even through his helm. The temperature readout in his helm’s display skyrockets as he tears one of the creatures from the storm and slams it onto the lifter deck. The warpfire catches and clings to the ceramite. Donato can hear his armour groan with the heat as he crushes the creature into dust. Beside him, Darrago roars. He fires on the daemons in an effort to keep the banner he carries from catching. Power fields flare as thunder hammers strike and power fists snap closed. Bolt-rounds detonate. The vortex shifts and changes and moves, trying to separate the Archangels. Trying to cut Sanyctus off from the rest of them.

  ‘Together,’ Donato bellows, again.

  And they move as one, weapons turned outwards, as the fire closes in. It is agony – breathless, boiling agony – but not one of the Archangels falls. Not one of them breaks the line. They stand together. Send the daemons back to the warp, together. The lifter chains creak in the heat as the summit draws near.

  ‘Ebellius,’ Donato shouts. ‘Deal with the vortex!’

  Above them, the source of the warpfire yawns like a maw. It is a rift from which more of the creatures spill and claw their way.

  ‘With pleasure, brother-captain,’ Ebellius says, and even now, in this apocalypse, Donato can hear the smile in his words.

  Ebellius moves out with Victorno on one side, Lurani on the oth
er. They use their shields and their bodies to keep the daemons from him. Ebellius slams his closed fist against his chestplate, an old affectation that makes a sound like a war drum. The missile launcher mounted on his shoulders tracks up as far as it can before locking and firing. The boom of displaced air rolls the fire and smoke back for just long enough for Donato to catch sight of the missiles detonating above them. The rift screams and begins to collapse. Fire rains down around them. To Donato, half-blinded by pain, it looks like stars falling to earth. The daemons around him burn out as they reach for him and then blow away like smoke.

  In the aftermath, he hears the clicking and creaking of armour as it cools, and the thunder of the lifter as it grinds to a halt at the summit of the shrine. The path to the Crown is crowded by mist and dappled with flickering light. The whispers are so very loud now. The red line that tracks warp activity is sheer. Donato’s helm display registers a whole host of new threats. He hears bolter-fire. Sees muzzle flare.

  Donato steps off the lifter platform to face their enemies and his Archangels follow him, trailing ash and smoke from the edges of their armour plates. They are burned and battered. Chipped and scored. Laced with new scars.

  But they are still standing.

  ‘This is it,’ Donato bellows, as gunfire cracks against his armour.

  ‘The end,’ Sanyctus rasps from beside him, his voice burned raw.

  THE SANGUINE TEAR, NOW…

  ‘You knew that Zalak wanted Sanyctus’ blood. That he thought him the closest to breaking, and the final sacrifice required for the rite to be complete.’

  Donato nods. He is still looking at those broken blades of his. At the jagged edges.

  ‘You knew that if you were to fail, that Sanguis Gloria would be lost, and Luminata with it. Millions of lives. Millions of souls.’

  ‘Such are the odds we face,’ Donato says. ‘Every battle, every campaign. We are always the ones left standing on the blade’s edge between annihilation and salvation. That is what it means to wear the armour we wear. To be Blood Angels.’

  ‘That is true, but this battle was more than that for you, captain. You say you had no choice but to go onwards. To make the climb and face Zalak in the Crown.’