Trial by Blood Read online

  Harahel grunted with effort, pulling Seth from Metatron and tossing him to the ground. ‘What madness is this?’ Harahel demanded as he watched Nisroc wrestle with Nathaniel. ‘Has the Rage claimed you all?’

  Seth rolled to his feet, snarling, blood-slick saliva dripping from his mouth, and charged Harahel.

  Harahel angled off, avoiding Seth’s grasp, and ripped his eviscerator across the Chapter Master’s thigh.

  Seth kept coming.

  ‘Be still, damn you.’ Adjusting his grip, Harahel smashed the flat of his weapon across Seth’s face. The blow shattered the blade and knocked Seth to the floor.

  Seth’s vision swam. He was barely conscious. At the edge of his vision he saw Nisroc. The Apothecary had a bolt pistol pressed to Nathaniel’s face.

  Nisroc fired. He continued to fire, blasting chunks from Nathaniel’s corpse until Harahel’s foot connected with his head.

  ‘Harahel… I thought you were dead.’

  ‘No such luck.’

  ‘The inquisitor…’

  ‘She is gone.’

  ‘Why?’ Seth glared at the hololith, his eyes burning into the image of the woman who stared back at him.

  ‘Consider it payback.’ Though she had changed much of her appearance, there was no mistaking the contempt that flickered in the woman’s eyes. After weeks of hunting through the shoal of vessels orbiting the Armageddon system, Seth had found Inquisitor Nerissa Lekkas. Docked aboard the Emperor’s Gift, she was awaiting clearance to translate out of the system.

  ‘For what?’ Seth growled, clenching his fist in front of his chest as though the act might squeeze the life from Nerissa. ‘What debt do we owe you?’

  ‘Inquisitor Corvin Herrold,’ she said.

  ‘I have met many of your kind, inquisitor. I rarely remember their names,’ Seth lied. He remembered Corvin. The inquisitor had come with deception in his heart and heresy on his lips. He had sought to undo the Flesh Tearers, to expose their curse. Corvin had sought answers in dark places. Seth had given him a taste of true darkness.

  ‘Do not mock me, Flesh Tearer.’ The image of Nerissa swelled to fill the hololith as she stepped closer to the Emperor’s Gift’s pict-transmitter. ‘Corvin was my master. My teacher. You broke his mind. You left him a shadow of the man he was.’

  ‘Whether I remember him or not is unimportant. What matters, inquisitor, is that I remember you.’

  Nerissa laughed. ‘And you have come to kill me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are a fool, Flesh Tearer. If you board this vessel, I will force you to butcher everyone on board. Your actions will sign the death warrant of your Chapter.’

  ‘I do not need to board you.’

  ‘You would open fire?’ Nerissa shook her head. ‘I think not. Your ship lies in the visual arc of a dozen Imperial warships. If you as much as power up a single weapons battery, I will have them obliterate you. We are even. Leave it at that.’

  ‘We will meet again, inquisitor,’ said Seth.

  ‘No, we will not.’ The image shuddered and dissolved as Nerissa terminated the comm-link.

  ‘Sanguinius feast on her soul.’ Behind Seth, Harahel snarled and thundered his fist down into a console. ‘She is right. If she leaves the system, we will never find her.’

  ‘I know,’ said Seth. ‘Open a channel to Chaplain Zophal.’

  ‘I stand ready, lord,’ Zophal’s voice crackled back over the comm.

  The Mortis Wrath lay on the far side of the flotilla, hugging a debris field at the very edge of the system. The Flesh Tearers strike cruiser was void-black, an indistinct warship whose insignia and allegiance had long since been scoured away.

  ‘Do you have range?’ asked Seth.

  ‘Yes, lord, but we cannot destroy the inquisitor’s vessel without risk. The Light of Terra and the Redeemer are both within visual range and are scheduled to translate with the Gift.’

  ‘Then we cannot fire. We will be excommunicated, hunted as heretics.’ Scar tissue shone raw around Nisroc’s left eye socket. He had torn his eye out, given it in penance for killing Nathaniel.

  Seth sighed. The Light of Terra and the Redeemer were medical transports. Their holds were crammed with tens of thousands of wounded. ‘Nisroc is right. There can be no witnesses. Zophal, launch the assault torpedoes. Kill them all.’

  ‘Yes, lord.’

  ‘The Blood cleanse us.’

  Seth turned from his warriors and paced to his flagship’s oculus. Outside, in the darkness of the void, he could just about make out the Emperor’s Gift, The Light of Terra and the Redeemer as their engines built up enough energy to translate into the warp.

  By now the assault torpedoes launched from the Mortis Wrath were attached to the ship’s hulls. Inside each, a squad of Death Company waited to be unleashed.

  When the trio of ships jumped into the warp, they would take the Death Company with them. The black-armoured warriors would breach the hulls and massacre their way through the ships. They were berserkers. Butchers possessed of an unrelenting bloodlust. They would hack, kill and murder until there was no one left.

  ‘We are vengeance,’ Seth whispered and grinned darkly.

  The inquisitor’s mind tricks would not work on those already lost to madness.

  ‘We are fury.’

  When there was no one else left, the Death Company would turn their wrath on each other, on the ships themselves. In their rage, they would erase all evidence of their deeds. Seth felt the tension ease from his body as he watched the ships jump. He felt no regret. He would seek no forgiveness for his actions, offer up no penance.

  Nerissa’s disregard for the lives of Imperial soldiers had appalled him because it had been unnecessary. But she had been wrong to think him above such actions. He was an angel of death, lord of murderers.

  ‘We are wrath.’

  from the blood

  Balthiel’s serf lay dead on the floor, his body chalk-white from exsanguination. Arterial fluid had run from his orifices until his veins were empty. Hoarfrost rimed the chamber walls. Unnaturally frozen air molecules cracked like agitated ice. Balthiel knelt in the centre of the lightless cell, oblivious to the serf.

  ‘By his Blood, am I made.’ The Librarian trembled as he spoke, forcing each word through bloodied lips. It took all of his focus, all of his training to stay conscious. Pain that he thought he could never have endured wracked his body. His hands ached from gripping the floor, his fingers dug knuckle-deep into the steel.

  The unknown figure stepped towards Balthiel.

  ‘By his Blood, am I armoured.’

  Blood trickled from Balthiel’s nose, striking the floor with a regular rhythm. He heard each droplet as it fell. They thundered in his mind like the firing of a siege cannon. Weeping, he held the trance; he would see the end of the vision this time. He had to. He would know the face of his tormentor.

  The shadow-fire obscuring the figure filtered away…

  ‘By his Blood…’ Balthiel shuddered, crying out in pain. Smoke exuded from his pores and drifted off his skin in a black-grey pall.

  A black-armoured Space Marine stood before Balthiel. Its battleplate resembled his own, but it bore the bloodied saltire of the damned upon its pauldron. It laughed. The humourless sound swelled in Balthiel’s mind, the persistent rumble of a storm-wracked sky.

  ‘By his Blood, shall I triumph.’ Balthiel’s voice was a tortured whisper.

  The Space Marine removed its helm, exposing its true face. It was a red-skinned beast. A daemon. Still laughing, it opened its fanged mouth and roared. ‘From the Blood are monsters born.’

  The psychic vision faded, throwing Balthiel up and back against the wall. He collapsed to the floor. Before darkness took him, the Librarian tapped the last of his strength and called for aid. ‘Apothecary…’

  ‘Master Zargo, Brother Arjen.’ Balthiel clamped his fist to his breastplate, saluting the two Angels Encarmine. ‘Chapter Master Gabriel Seth sends his regards.’ Balthiel entered
the strategium proper, joining Zargo under a grey-blue hololith projection of the Stromark System.

  ‘I see Seth at least had the good sense to avoid this conflict,’ said Zargo, a snide smile stretching his lips.

  Balthiel hid the annoyance from his face. He’d fought alongside Zargo and his Chapter before. Of all the sons of Sanguinius they were the most aloof, displaying a contemptuous disregard for the weak. Their arrogance surpassed that of the Blood Angels themselves. Balthiel held Zargo’s gaze. The Chapter Master’s haughtiness did far more to mark him as an Angel Encarmine than the winged Chapter symbol on his left pauldron.

  ‘My lord is needed elsewhere,’ said Balthiel.

  Castellan Zargo grinned, a glimmer of disappointment in his eyes. He would have enjoyed sparring with the Flesh Tearer. Zargo turned to the strategium’s sole human occupant. ‘Leave us.’

  Admiral Vortimer’s face crumpled. He was master of the Emperor’s Fist, the largest warship in the Epeyrion battlegroup, and this was his war room. Vortimer pulled his shoulders back in an effort to regain some dignity, and glared up at the three giant warriors. Each took up the space of four of his officers as they stood around the tactical console. The Space Marines’ crimson armour purred as they examined the hololith.

  This was not the first time Vortimer had encountered the warriors of the Adeptus Astartes. On Pleuvus Seven, he had borne witness to the speed and ferocity of a White Scars assault. Still, it seemed impossible that even a superhuman could manoeuvre clad in such heavy battleplate.

  Awe, and if he was honest, fear, held Vortimer’s tongue in check. He made the sign of the aquila, clicked his boots together and left the Space Marines to their task.

  ‘It is as well he is gone,’ said Arjen as the door closed on the admiral. ‘The drumming of his coward heart was growing tiresome.’

  Even a passive reading of Arjen’s mind revealed the malice behind his jest. It would not be long before Zargo’s First Captain succumbed to the rage boiling in his blood. Of that, Balthiel was certain. ‘My orders are to secure Stromark Prime,’ said Balthiel. He looked to Zargo.

  ‘Yes, we will enter the Stromark system together. You will drive for Prime while we take Secundus.’ Zargo manipulated the image. Blue orbs depicted the sister worlds. Each planet had been a bastion of industry, charged with supplying the Emperor’s armies with the weapons needed to prosecute their campaigns of reclamation. The petty feuds that had long existed between their rulers had escalated to a system-wide conflict and could no longer be ignored.

  ‘Governess Agrafena has fortified her palace well.’ Zargo indicated the line of reinforced positions framing the palace. ‘There’s a dense network of anti-air batteries and surface-to-low-orbit missiles. We cannot risk Thunderhawk deployment.’ Several threat sigils sprang up across the hololith as Zargo spoke.

  ‘Teleporters?’ asked Balthiel.

  ‘The palace is void shielded. Drop pod assault is the only option,’ said Zargo.

  Balthiel studied the hololith, executing the mission in his mind. He had led hundreds of such attacks on enemy positions. There were always casualties. ‘Losses are likely to be significant.’

  ‘You must find a way, Flesh Tearer. The Axion campaign will stall, perhaps even collapse, should the Stromarkians continue to focus their efforts on destroying one another. You must ensure compliance, the Emperor demands it.’

  ‘Why not send an assassin, murder the perfidious weaklings in their sleep?’ suggested Arjen. ‘We belong on the front, killing orks.’ Arjen drew his hand through the hololith, distorting the image.

  ‘Were it only that simple, brother.’ Chaplain Appollus stepped from the shadows of the corridor, his black armour seeming to coalesce from the darkness.

  ‘Chaplain.’ Zargo greeted the Flesh Tearer coldly, annoyed by the contempt in his tone.

  Arjen said nothing.

  Balthiel suppressed a smile, reading Arjen’s desire to kill Appollus even as the Angel Encarmine formed the thought. +Not with a dozen of your brothers.+ The Librarian pushed his words into Arjen’s mind.

  ‘There is more to this conflict than the greed of two individuals. The Stromarkians have long been rivals. This war runs in their blood.’ Appollus adjusted the hololith. Prime spun into sharp focus. ‘We must crush their spirit. We must remind them that the needs of the Imperium are of more importance than their own petty concerns of state.’ Appollus tapped the keys on the tactical console. The hololith shuddered. The image resolved to show several clusters of red orbs that blinked over Stromark Prime, indicating primary bombardment targets. ‘We will drown the Stromarkians’ arrogance in a tide of blood.’ The hololith continued to change as Appollus spoke. Its cogitators extrapolated landing sites and predicted enemy casualty rates, illustrating the destruction Appollus and his Death Company would wreak upon Stromark Prime.

  We cannot repeat Honour’s End. Seth’s words rang in Balthiel’s mind. He stared at the Chaplain. Appollus’s eyes were as dark as his armour. Balthiel remembered his vision, the black-armoured daemon etched into his memory, and shivered. The Death Company were a terrible force to behold, their unrestrained fury the stuff of nightmares. Tendrils of icy foreboding stabbed at Balthiel. They were about to unleash terror upon Stromark. Such a massacre would not be without cost.

  Balthiel reached out tentatively with his mind, probing the Chaplain’s thoughts. He saw nothing. Appollus’s intentions were hidden behind mental barriers as fierce as the skull helm he wore in battle.

  The Librarian turned back to the slowly turning image of Stromark Prime, his eyes lingering on the civilian casualty numbers as they continued to count upwards. ‘The Blood grant me strength,’ Balthiel mouthed.

  Death’s Cowl bled into real space, exiting the warp in a shimmer of fractured light. The vessel’s hull stretched to infinity, defying all laws of artifice, before snapping to its original proportions. Tendrils of ethereal fire clung to the Cowl’s ashen flanks as it powered towards Stromark Prime, a final echo of the nightmare realm that the Flesh Tearers strike cruiser had traversed.

  ‘Range?’ Chaplain Zuphias’s voice boomed across the Cowl’s command bridge like the rumble of thrusters. Even by Space Marine standards he was ancient, his oil-black armour scrubbed clean of insignia by the ravages of time.

  ‘Seven minutes to optimal firing distance, liege.’

  ‘Nine minutes to deployment range, liege.’

  The surveyor and tactical serfs spoke near simultaneously, a practice Zuphias insisted upon. On the battlefield, he had commanded hundreds of warriors, interpreting an unceasing barrage of sensory information, while he fought blade-to-blade with his enemy. He would have his warship function at maximum efficiency. There was no place in battle for civility.

  Zuphias nodded, and opened a vox-link. ‘Chaplain Appollus, you have less than nine minutes. Be ready.’ In response, an acknowledgment sigil flashed on Zuphias’s retinal display. Zuphias stared across the monastic expanse of the bridge. Below him, dozens of serfs scurried around, performing the myriad tasks necessary for the strike cruiser to function. He pitied them. They existed as echoes of the warriors they delivered to battle. The serf’s ashen robes were a poor substitute for the dark armour worn by the Death Company ensconced in the lower decks. The saw-toothed blades wrought into the floor of the bridge were no more than a homage to the Chapter symbol all Flesh Tearers carried on their pauldrons.

  Zuphias looked up and growled, glaring through the real space window as Stromark Prime edged closer. He would give his primary heart to be making planetfall with Appollus and his battle-brothers.

  It was true that he commanded the power to obliterate planets, to cut a bloody path through the stars. But naval engagements were detached, passionless things that left him as cold as the void they were fought in. Zuphias yearned for the immediacy of personal combat. To once again hear the bark of a boltgun, to feel it judder in his hand as it spat death. He wished for nothing more than to taste the sharp tang of supercharged air as his
crozius struck down an enemy. He sighed; such things would never again be his to experience.

  A monstrous, red-skinned daemon clad in fire and bronze had mortally wounded Zuphias in the Lypherion campaign. Khorne’s mightiest child, its axe a burning totem of murder, the daemon had shattered Zuphias’s bones and bisected him with a single stroke of its blade. Only his tenacity and burning anger had kept his twin hearts pumping until the Apothecaries found him. They had interred him in the Cowl’s command throne, keeping his body alive through a regimen of electroshocks and bio-fluids. Zuphias was to be transferred to a Dreadnought sarcophagus on his return to Cretacia, given an armoured body in which to continue his battle against the enemies of his Chapter. But operational requirements had necessitated he remain on the Cowl. Now, after more than six decades, he could no longer be removed from the vessel.

  Zuphias looked down at the bundle of wires and cabling that replaced his legs. This was to be his fate until oblivion claimed him.

  The chamber’s luminators flickered as the ship sensed its captain’s frustration.

  ‘Enemy contacts, liege. Closing.’ Klaxons wailed overhead, ringing out as the surveyor relayed the information.

  ‘Show me,’ Zuphias growled.

  ‘Yes, liege.’ The surveyor tapped a series of dials on his console, activating the tactical hololith. The panel of green light flickered as it resolved to hang in the air above Zuphias.

  The Chaplain’s eyes narrowed as he studied the hololith. A pair of warships and a shoal of support frigates were moving to intercept them. He looked to each of the warships in turn, bringing them to the forefront of the image with a thought. The Cowl’s machine-spirit analysed their engine signatures, displaying a raft of tactical data, including the offensive and defensive capability of each vessel. The Pride of Halka was a Lunar-class cruiser, the Emperor’s Guardian a Dictator-class whose energy output suggested it was carrying a full complement of Starhawk bombers. Three Cobra-class destroyers were trying their best to hide among the modest flotilla.