The Death of Integrity (22 page)

Teale undid his helmet’s seals, and removed it. He placed it upon the pulpit. His eyes glowed with savage delight, a touch of fervour, a touch of madness. This was his time, the time of submission, the giving in to powerful appetites. ‘Now brothers! Drink! Drink so that the monster might be sated, and that you might steal its strength.’

The Blood Drinkers fell to their knees, an awful keening escaping their lips. The Chaplains and Apothecaries and Sanguinary Guard undid their own helmets and approached the dying man on the altar, cups extended. The brothers lapped frantically at the stuff of life. In the alcoves, those serfs that were still conscious shut off their taps and those of their collapsed comrades. They retreated quietly, leaving their masters to their debased appetites.

Their faces smeared red, the brothers fell upon the altar, and tore the dead man to pieces.

Later, when the Thirst was quenched, Reclusiarch Mazrael would lead them in prayers of atonement and then of preparation. They would reaffirm their oaths to the Emperor, and beg forgiveness of one another for the lives they had taken. The Techmarines would take a measure of blood from the brothers themselves to placate the Chapters’ weapons and armours. Only then, with the beast inside them tamed, would the brothers’ minds turn fully to battle and the destruction of man’s foes.

Later. For now, the Blood Drinkers lived up to their name.

They fed.

Chapter 12

The Stirring of the Rage

Galt waited patiently for Chapter Master Caedis. The Thunderhawk’s ramp was open, its red-lit interior exposed. Two of the Blood Drinker’s ornately attired honour guard stood to attention either side of the doorway, and servitors wearing the red of that Chapter clumped about the ship, mindlessly fulfilling their duty. Of Caedis, there was no sign.

Galt relaxed into the wait. There was opportunity in reflection in all things, and he allowed his mind to wander where it would. He ran his gaze over the vessel’s lines, so red, so shocking in the drab, starkly lit hangar bay of the Novamarines.

There was a movement under the wing. A shape. Too small for an initiate, too nimble to be that of a servitor. He walked closer to the vessel, and caught sight of a serf working on an atmosphere filter. It was the first of the Blood Drinker’s human servants Galt had seen. Where the Novamarine’s servants were tall and well-formed, this creature of the Blood Angels seemed less than human. He was stooped, and thin to the point of emaciation. He was bare to his waist, wearing a long kilt emblazoned with the yellow blood chalice. Metal tubes sparkled on his limbs and torso, disappearing under the skin in places Galt’s trained, killer’s eye could not help but notice were close to major blood vessels. Ritual scarification criss-crossed the man’s back.

The serf paused in what he was doing, feeling Galt’s eyes on him. He turned and looked directly at the Novamarines First Captain. His eyes were fierce and defiant above his face mask, and he did not drop his gaze from the lord captain’s face as he should have. Galt raised his eyebrow at the servant’s boldness. The serf dipped his head, and disappeared into the red gloom of the Thunderhawk passenger compartment.

Seconds later, Caedis strode out.

The lord of the Blood Drinkers wore Terminator armour, its magnitude accentuating his already imposing size. He wore a double-handed power sword at his waist. He was focussed, eyes bright, his skin ruddy where before it had been pale. But there was still the trace of strain behind his confidence, he was holding something in.

‘Well met, Captain Galt,’ said Caedis. The taller man looked down at Galt.

‘Well met, Lord Chapter Master,’ replied Galt.

‘I apologise for dragging you away from your duties, captain. I wished to see you one final time before the mission commenced.’

‘Then allow me to take the opportunity to thank you for allowing me overall strategic command.’

Caedis looked over Galt’s head, and smiled as if he had seen an old acquaintance somewhere, the kind of smile that was welcoming yet condescending. A pained look marred his features and he swayed a little. His yellow eyes flicked back to Galt’s face. They took a while to focus in the Novamarine’s face, but when he spoke, he did so clearly. ‘Cousin, your talents are better suited for this particular role. I would lead my men from the front and smite our foes alongside them. A cool head such as yours is better employed coordinating the greater action.’

‘You will be unable to give effective orders once you are away from your insertion point, my lord. The radiation fields are too strong for suit vox to penetrate. The Adeptus Mechanicus boosting web will not be installed until the genestealers are driven towards the killing zone.’

‘I am aware of the limitations this action imposes upon me, but I trust in your direction, first among captains of the Novamarines. Give me and mine an order, and we will obey. And Captain Sorael is an excellent commander,’ said Caedis. ‘I am sure he and your Captain Mastrik will excel themselves in the killing zone whether I can comment upon his actions or not.’

Galt nodded, somewhat reluctantly conceding the point. ‘Captain Aresti leads our men in the Hammer of the Emperor. Our men should begin the venting of the hulk’s atmosphere soon enough.’

‘Once I am on the hulk, I will order my men to follow him.’

‘You will not lead them yourself?’ said Galt.

Caedis shook his head, and for a second, Galt thought he might falter.

‘No, there are certain… Rites, rituals that I must complete. My attention will be elsewhere. I defer command to him.’ He was struggling with his words, whether in finding those that were appropriate or because he was exhausted Galt could not discern.

‘Might I ask, Lord Caedis, are you well?’

Caedis smiled as if that were an amusing jest. His smile dropped quickly.

‘Yes, and no. My time grows short, Captain Galt. We of the Blood Drinkers can… We know when our end approaches. Do you understand?’

Galt hesitated. He thought of the Shadow Novum and the messages delivered there. Who knew what beliefs the Blood Drinkers held?

‘I do, Lord Caedis.’

Caedis nodded thoughtfully, and for a moment Galt saw respect there. ‘Then I shall return to my ship and gather my men,’ said Caedis. ‘The magi?’

‘They wait as commanded. I will accompany them on their retrieval mission when I deem the hulk safe.’

‘Very well,’ said Caedis. He offered his hand. Galt took his forearm in the warrior’s clasp. His grasp was firm and unwavering, if his gaze was not. ‘Until we meet again, captain. May the Emperor’s foresight deliver our foes to the points of our swords, and his mercy shield us from theirs.’

Talking to Galt took all of Caedis’s remaining self-control. The Rite of Holos had been held only hours before, and already the Thirst clutched at his throat. Flashes of light accompanied by starbursts of pain vexed his eyes and mind. When he closed his eyes, glimpses of something that was not his own life dazzled him, cast him adrift from the flow of time. His ears buzzed. He walked with all the dignity he could up the ramp into the Thunderhawk. The craft was empty but for a trio of serfs and Chaplain Mazrael.

Mazrael stood at the top of the second ramp inside, the one leading up into the Thunderhawk’s upper deck. He wore his Terminator armour, winged crozius in his hand. His helmet was a skull with glowing red eyes and sharp teeth. His torso was encased in a gold-chased ribcage, his limbs carried bones sculpted in relief onto the armour plates. Lit red, he was a devil steeped in blood. Caedis stopped at the top of the boarding ramp, eyes fixed on the daemonic figure above him.

The ramp clanged shut and Caedis’s head reeled. He staggered and sank down onto his knees.

‘Mazrael, help me…’

‘Hush now, my lord, my son. I recognised the signs,’ said Mazrael gently. He walked down the ramp to where Caedis knelt, a fallen giant in armour fit to clad a mountain. Mazrael placed his hand on Caedis’s head and the lord of the Blood Drinkers raised bleary eyes to meet with Mazrael’s unblinking helmet lenses. ‘What will you take, my son? The black and the red, or the Emperor’s mercy?’

Caedis’s face furrowed. He was on the verge of forgetting something important. Light flashed through his mind, searing migraine running hard after it. He walked stony ground on feet that were not his own, and his breath was laboured as if his body worked hard. He blinked the image away. He tried to speak, but his throat was so dry. He swallowed, no saliva came. Mazrael signalled behind him, and a serf hurried down, bearing a jewelled cup whose bowl was fashioned from a human skull.

‘This is the Calix Cruentes,’ said Mazrael. His skull helmet wavered in Caedis’s eyes as he spoke. ‘Only those who succumb to our curse ever see it. Drink from it, it will hold the visions at bay a short while.’

Caedis reached out a hand. His eyesight splintered, like light forced through a prism. His view became one of two places, a stained glass window made up of parts from two different images. His hand, and not his hand. One armoured, one naked and bloodied. He took the cup to his mouth and drank, a sip at first but then great gulps. Slippery liquid ran down from his mouth as he guzzled at the contents. The liquid was rich, a volcanic spice to it. It slicked his throat and vocal cords. Blood, always blood.

‘Slowly, my lord!’ Mazrael pried the cup away from his lord. ‘There are preparations added to this life-fluid that are dangerous if imbibed too swiftly.’

Caedis felt himself returning to the present. The sense of dislocation retreated, that feeling of otherness replaced by the thrum of the Thunderhawk’s systems. Mazrael’s osseous helmet stared down from on high, death’s own judgement. The serf, overtopping Caedis only by a head although the Chapter Master knelt, looked at him dispassionately.

‘Can you speak?’ asked Mazrael.

‘Yes, yes I can speak,’ Caedis said. He closed his eyes, but it brought no comfort, bringing the buzzing in his ears to a cacophony within which were hidden secret and terrible words.

‘Then what do you choose?’

‘I choose… I choose the black and red.’

Mazrael nodded. ‘I expected nothing less of you, my lord, but I had to ask again. It is not unknown for a brother to change his mind once the full horror of what awaits becomes apparent.’ He beckoned to the other serfs. ‘Prepare him.’

Two of the serfs went to Caedis’s side, and began to remove his armour’s outer plates. The third wheeled an auto-artisan down from the upper decks. This they would use to paint his armour black.

‘Brother Luentes,’ Mazrael voxed the pilot. ‘Take us back to
Lux Rubrum
.’

‘Yes, Lord Reclusiarch Mazrael,’ the pilot replied. The engines immediately kicked into life, building to a roar.

‘My brother, my lord, my son,’ said Mazrael. ‘Now, we shall pray together, pray to Sanguinius and the Emperor, for you shall soon be joining them both.’

Mazrael’s prayers faded from Caedis’s consciousness. Caedis replied to the catechism as best he could, each response activating deeply buried psycho conditioning; certain hypnotic states triggered by key words and ritual recitation implanted in him as a neophyte should the Black Rage come upon him. He realised this numbly, that this was no longer the Thirst, but that he was succumbing to the worst of the Flaw. A curse wrapped around his every cell; the thorns around the genomic flower of his gifts pricking at last.

For the Blood Drinkers and other scions of Sanguinius, their gifts were double-edged. But he was as detached from his realisation as he was from everything else. The rocky path was beneath his feet again, and then it was not, and he was looking at his repainted armour being replaced upon his limbs. And then he was on the lava road out of Fortress San Guisiga, hurrying away in secret and at night, and then he was walking the corridor from the docking bay on
Lux Rubrum
.

Brothers in full armour knelt at his passing, heads bowed in sorrow and deference. Lining all the way to the boarding torpedo launch tubes, half chanting his name low and regular as a heartbeat as others sang the hymn of mourning. And he was climbing up rocks hot with volcanic heat, splintered vision scouring desiccated skies for the silhouettes of the astorgai. He was in an acceleration chair. His men around him, men he had fought with for five hundred years: Epistolary Guinian, Reclusiarch Mazrael, Brother Ancient Metrion and others. They were helmetless, and they were singing a low dirge. The words were lost to him, sounding from far away, as sound travels through water, or through blood.

An astorgai swiped at him. Its wings flapped its burned-flesh stench deep into his nostrils and it cursed him in corrupt Gothic. The blow of its pinion-claw dented his plastron, only it was not his armour. Then it was not the astorgai’s blow that forced him back, but the sudden acceleration of the boarding torpedo, a fanfare of fire heralding its exit into space. The acceleration abruptly ceased, the pressure came off his chest and he came back into himself. He looked to his men, his companions, his friends. They wept, some of them.

What was this? What did he see? This was not Sanguinius’s death, not the communion with his primarch he was expecting. He tried to speak, to say what he saw, but he could not. He writhed against his restraints and shouted, and he was not sure if he shouted for himself or the man he was in his visions. ‘Who will guide me? Who will show me the way?’

Mazrael’s hand grasped the edge of Caedis’s shoulder plate, turning him so that his skull helmet filled his world.

‘I will guide you, lord, I will show you the way,’ said the Reclusiarch gently.

Caedis blinked. Reality shifted about him. The boarding torpedo’s klaxon sounded, alarm lights flashed. All around him, the song abruptly ceased, and helmets were placed on heads and sealed to armour. Mazrael helped Caedis put his on.

All was thunder and violence. The occupants of the torpedo were thrown about in their seats as the vessel punched deep into the hulk. Metal squealed along its windowless hull.

The torpedo reached its predetermined depth. Retro-rockets roared and it slammed to a halt, hurling the Space Marines forward against their restraints. The forward hatch blew open, the metal skating across the deck outside. Their harnesses slammed upward, and the Adeptus Astartes were up and into the hulk.

Metal glowed white hot from the retro-thrusters. Scorch marks blackened every wall, smoke choked the corridor. But this area was not airtight, and the exhaust was rapidly sucked away. From all around them the sound of other torpedoes hitting home reverberated through the metal of the hulk.