[Dawn of War 01] - Dawn of War Read online

  In truth, some of his men were only too pleased to become support personnel—to let the Blood Ravens do the fighting for them. Brom shuddered slightly at the thought of those cowardly troopers, feeling the disdain pouring out of Angelos even from the other side of the camp. But there were some Guardsmen who knew the true value of war—they knew that combat was a goal in itself, that shedding blood was the highest form of offering to the God-Emperor, whether it was the blood of the enemy or your own. There was but one commandment for the loyal soldier: thou shalt kill. Sergeant Katrn knew, and Brom knew that he could rely on Tartarans like him to sustain the honour of his proud regiment.

  He took a deep drag on his lho-stick, letting the local weed fill his lungs. He held it there for a few seconds, and for a moment he thought that he could feel the substance of Tartarus itself bleeding into his soul.

  Yes, he thought, we will fight again. The Tartarans will show these Blood Ravens what it means to be Tartarus born and bred.

  “I see their faces every day, Prathios. They scream into my dreams and disturb my prayers. It is as though they haunt my mind, now that their planet is no more,” confessed Gabriel, kneeling in supplication before the company Chaplain. The two Marines were hidden in the heavy shadows of a temporary shrine, hastily constructed by the Tartarans in the heart of the new field-station.

  “Their souls are at ease, brother-captain. It is yours that can find no peace. You call out into the warp, like a beacon for the pain of those who have passed before you,” said Prathios in a low voice.

  “I am calling daemons into my mind?” asked Gabriel, his voice tinged with horror.

  “No, Gabriel, the daemons come by themselves, drawn by the agonies of a soul at war with itself. Your anguish exposes you to their taunts, just as a ship at sea exposes itself to a storm.” Prathios’ voice was deep and soothing. He had seen Gabriel change since the Cyrene affair, and he was concerned for his captain. Inside all the magnificent power armour, and behind the myths and legends, a Space Marine was just a man. Not quite a man like any other, but a man nevertheless.

  The Apothecaries and Techmarines of the Adeptus Astartes could effect profound transformations on the body of an initiate—augmenting the internal organs, adding sensory implants and bolstering muscle strength, they could even insert a delicate carapace under the skin of the whole body, ready to interface with the power armour. However, there was only so much that could be done for a Marine’s mind and soul.

  The selection procedure for induction into the Blood Ravens—the Blood Trials—were rigorous in the extreme. Not only were aspirants required to demonstrate the physical prowess of a superior warrior, but their genetic code would also be tested for the smallest sign of mutation. But genetic mutation and a taint of the soul were not the same thing. For detection of the latter, the Blood Ravens would rely on the shadowy expertise of the librarium sanatorium—where all would-be Librarians were screened psychically, to the point of insanity, probing the depths of their souls to find the cracks and fissures for which the forces of Chaos would quest constantly.

  The Chapter’s Chaplains would oversee all of this, and Prathios had done so innumerable times in his long life. Over a century earlier, in his younger years, the Chaplain had even recruited Gabriel himself in one of the Cyrene trials.

  Prathios could remember the trial clearly. He could still see the defiant face of the young Guardsman, burning with passion and smothered in the blood of his competitors, as the young Gabriel Angelos fought for his right for a place on the Blood Ravens’ Thunderhawk. His brilliant green eyes had flared with resolution—certain that of the millions of Cyrenean warriors, he was the best. And he had been the best, reflected Prathios, without a doubt.

  Even then, there had been something unusual about the young Angelos. His sparkling eyes burned a little too brightly, and his soul seemed to shine almost too purely, as though it were untouched by the horrors of the universe. His genetic tests had all come back perfectly—absolutely flawless, which was almost a mutation in itself, especially on Cyrene. Although he had a sensitive mind, the Chapter had decided not to push Gabriel through the horrors of the sanatorium—he was not a psyker and he would never be a Librarian.

  Prathios himself had voiced some reservations about this decision. Part of him was concerned about how the prodigal young initiate would respond when the horrors of the galaxy finally breached the purity of his soul. He was concerned that the Blood Ravens should attempt to prepare his mind for the shock of the terrible responsibilities of the Adeptus Astartes. No matter how spectacular his physical and tactical capacities, Gabriel’s soul shone with naive clarity, and Prathios feared that this beauty belied fragility.

  And then there had been the return to Cyrene, and Gabriel had looked upon his homeworld with the eyes of a Space Marine for the first time, charged with conducting the Blood Trials himself. What he had seen there had filled him with horror, and what he had done had shattered his naivety forever.

  Prathios sighed deeply, reaching his hand down to Gabriel’s shoulder, and he shivered at the thought of the storm raging in his captain’s soul. No man, not even a captain of the Adeptus Astartes, should have to exterminate his own home planet—what effect had this duty had upon his unsullied mind?

  “It offends me to flee from combat, sorcerer. The Alpha Legion has not won its reputation by turning its tail in the face of aliens. We may not have the pathetic paranoia about honour that is shown by the Adeptus Astartes, but we are still warriors, Sindri, and you would do well not to forget it.” Bale was breathing hard, struggling to keep his temper under control. The sorcerer’s plans were not playing out in accord with his own, and he was being humiliated at every turn. If the sorcerer did not promise so much, Bale would have flayed him years ago.

  From the entrance to a cave in the side of the Lloovre Valley, Bale could see the sun rising above the shimmering city of Lloovre Marr. The Alpha Legion had sped down into the valley during the night, taking cover in the dense forest. Sindri had spotted the cave, and the Chaos Marines had made their way up the opposing wall of the valley to set up a temporary camp in the cover that it afforded. From there they could monitor movements along the river basin and Sindri could attempt to divine the intent of the eldar. Meanwhile, Bale had sent out a rider to summon reinforcements; the next time he came across the eldar, he would not bow to their onslaught.

  “My Lord Bale,” whispered Sindri, as the first light of the morning glinted menacingly off the blades that adorned his helmet. “We work towards a common end. The honour and prowess of the Alpha Legion are under no threat. Rather, we stand on the brink of a great awakening—something infinitely more powerful than our pride is glittering just out of reach. Our rewards will justify our sacrifices a thousand times over.”

  “You had better be right, sorcerer,” said Bale, almost spitting with distaste at his manipulative ways. “Otherwise your sacrifice will follow quick on the heels of your failure. Your reassurances that the orks would keep the Blood Ravens busy have proved false, and your calculations appear to have underestimated the strength of these eldar. I will not tolerate another mistake, sorcerer, and you would not survive it.”

  “My lord, I will not fail,” replied Sindri, without bowing. Inside his helmet, his jaw was clenched, and it required a real effort of will to smooth his tone. “The eldar will guide us to our goal—they will underestimate our strength and our vision. Their arrogance will be their undoing. As we fled, we reinforced their prejudices, my lord. And, as for the Blood Ravens, they are of no consequence. They are… in hand.”

  The Chaos Lord scoffed audibly and brushed past Sindri, pushing his way further into the cave, where his Marines were tending to their weapons in preparation for the combat to come.

  Sindri, left alone in the mouth of the cave, walked out into the morning air and raised his arms to the sun, bathing himself in the red light of dawn as though it were a shower of blood. His mind was racing with resentment at the ingratitude of that near
-sighted oaf, Bale. But he laughed quietly to himself, whispering his voice into the trees: at the end of the affair, nobody will be able to treat me with such disrespect.

  The runes on the altar fragment were unusual, and Isador could still not decipher their precise meaning. He had retreated to the very edge of the camp, climbing into the shattered remains of the avalanche out of sight of the rest of his battle-brothers. The early morning sun was shedding a faint, reddening glow onto the inscription, coating each of the runes in the suggestion of ghostly blood. Isador sighed humourlessly, wondering how much actual blood had coursed across these etchings in their long history.

  The character Treraum—storm—kept drawing his eye, and his memory ached as he tried to recall the meanings of the runes that appeared after it. He hated himself for being unable to remember, and his hate seeped through into resentment against Gabriel for making them abandon the site so quickly.

  They were Blood Ravens, after all, was it not their Emperor-given nature to seek out new knowledge that might be of use to the Imperium? And who was Gabriel to judge whether this altar might be of use? He had not served his time in the librarium sanatorium, not like Isador, and had not spent long years exposing his soul to the torturous mantras of heretics and aliens. He had never read the forbidden books of Azariah Vidya, the Father Librarian of the Blood Ravens, may the Emperor guard his soul. Gabriel had never even heard the silver tones of the Astronomican; never had his soul been seduced into the unspeakable symphony of that choir and left hanging in the deepest reaches of the immaterium, utterly alone with only his knowledge and discipline to bring him home again.

  Home. Gabriel knew nothing of the value of homecoming. Cyrene had been Isador’s home too.

  In truth, Isador had never understood why the Blood Ravens did not require all of their senior officers to be Librarians. There were enough of them in the Chapter—far more than was typical in any other Chapter of Space Marines—and the Chapter Master himself was a powerful Librarian. It was ridiculous to expect that captains like Gabriel could really make sensible decisions about relics like this altar—only a Librarian could know the true value of the artefact. But Gabriel would not ask advice on command decisions, he was adamant that the responsibility was his.

  In practice, however, only a handful of Librarians ever acceded to positions of command, except temporarily, in the absence of their captain. It was as though the Chapter had learnt nothing from the example of their Great Father, Azariah Vidya.

  Once, during the early stages of his training, Isador had asked Chaplain Prathios about the politics of promotion within the Blood Ravens, but the Chaplain had just shaken his head sadly and said: there is no promotion, young Isador, there is only service—we all have our parts to play for the glory of the Great Father and the Emperor. At the time, Isador had nodded sagely, believing that he saw the sense in subsuming himself into the organic unity of the Chapter. But now, with the morning wind whispering down through the valley and whistling between the rocks, after two days of war against orks and eldar, on an alien planet that was about to be swallowed by a warp storm, he was not so sure. Different decisions could have been made—and he would have made them better.

  But all was not lost, since he had saved this altar fragment, and he would work out a way of using the knowledge that it contained to save the Blood Ravens Third Company from making any further mistakes.

  “Knowledge is power,” he muttered to himself, reciting the Chapter’s motto as though it were his own. “Guard it well.”

  “Librarian Akios. What a surprise to see you here.” The familiar voice came down from the top of one of the large rocks behind which Isador was sitting.

  “Colonel Brom. I had no idea that you were there,” said Isador, wondering exactly how long the Tartaran had been watching him. He had been so absorbed in his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed, and he made a mental note that he should not let that happen again. For all of his faults, Gabriel was never complacent enough to be taken by surprise by a Guardsman.

  Brom breathed a plume of smoke out of his lungs, enjoying being higher than the massive Marine for the first time. The smoke settled slowly down towards Isador, dissipating as it reached his immaculate, blue armour. Instead of speaking, Brom took another draw on his lho-stick and looked off into the sunrise, apparently enjoying the beauty of dawn on his homeworld.

  “It is beautiful, is it not?” asked Brom openly.

  Isador turned and looked at the sunrise for the first time and nodded. “Yes, colonel. Tartarus is a beautiful planet.”

  “It is my home, Librarian, and I will not give it up. Not to the orks, not to the eldar, and not even to the Blood Ravens.” As he spoke, Brom turned his head away from the sun, fixing Isador with a firm and determined stare.

  “I can assure you that Captain Angelos has no designs on your planet, colonel… beautiful though it is,” said Isador, trying to diffuse the anger that seemed to bubble in the background of Brom’s tone.

  “Do you remember your homeworld, Librarian?” There was some acid in the question, and Isador flinched slightly as it stung him. Even if Brom had been watching him for a while, how could he know? A cold wisp of wind flickered between the rocks, making them both shiver.

  “Yes, I remember it well,” he replied plainly.

  “And did the good captain save it?” asked Brom. He knew. Somehow he knew.

  “Gabriel did what had to be done,” snapped Isador, suddenly leaping to the defence of his old friend. “I would have done the same thing had the decision been mine.” And I would have done, he realised as he spoke.

  Brom let another thread of smoke ease out between his pursed lips, as though unconcerned by the Librarian’s sudden emotion. His eyes were still burning into the radiant blue of Isador’s, glowing with an inhuman taint of red. For a moment, Isador wondered whether it was really Brom that was staring down at him.

  “And what of Tartarus?” he asked, changing the subject and watching the colonel carefully. “You mentioned some legends about a storm, colonel. I would be most interested to hear more about it.”

  “You can read it yourself, can’t you?” hissed Brom, his voice dripping with venom as his eyes swam with red, as though riddled with burst capillaries.

  Stung again, Isador vaulted up the side of the rock and grabbed Brom by the collar of his coat, lifting him clear off the ground. As they turned away from the dawn, the red faded from Brom’s eyes and he began to cough violently, exhaling gouts of smoke into a sudden gust of wind.

  “Librarian Akios!” The voice made Isador drop Brom into a heap on top of the rock, as he turned back towards the camp.

  Standing just outside the fortifications was Sergeant Corallis, waving a summons to Isador. “The captain wants to see you. You can bring the colonel.”

  “Captain Angelos, I am here as you requested,” said Brom, pushing aside the curtains that hung across the entrance to the command post next to the shrine. Isador loomed behind him for a moment, before pushing past him into the hab-unit and nodding a greeting to Gabriel.

  “Colonel Brom, thank you for coming. We need your Tartarans to cover this pass. The combat in this sector will be sure to attract the attention of the remnants of the ork forces, and we cannot afford their interference further up the mountain. If the Blood Ravens have to engage the eldar, we will need no other distractions,” explained Gabriel, watching the tension between Brom and Isador with unease.

  “Understood, captain,” replied Brom professionally. “You may count on the Imperial Guard to hold this pass. No ork will get through while a Tartaran still holds his weapon.”

  “Very good, colonel. Keep me appraised of the situation and, if possible, I will send support if the orks do attack.” Gabriel hesitated for a moment, as though on the brink of adding something. But then he waved his hand dismissively “Thank you, colonel. Your assistance in this matter is much appreciated.”

  Brom bowed sharply and then left, leaving Isador and Gabriel alone.

>   “What is wrong, old friend?” asked Gabriel—the angst on Isador’s face was plain to see.

  “I do not trust him, Gabriel,” said Isador, watching the curtains close behind Brom.

  “He is a good man, Isador. A good soldier. His men love him, and they follow him without question, mostly. He may not be a Space Marine, and he may not even be the finest officer in the Imperial Guard, but he is a good man. I have been too harsh on him, and it is time for me to share some responsibility. This is his homeworld, after all,” said Gabriel frankly.

  Isador observed his old friend for a few moments, a torrent of emotions flashing through his mind as the events of the last few minutes rehearsed themselves in his head. They had been through so much together—born and raised on the same planet, and then inducted into the Blood Ravens in the same Blood Trials. A wave of remorse and affection washed over him, and he felt like himself again.

  “Forgive me, captain, I am still thinking about the altar,” confessed Isador.

  “There is nothing to forgive, old friend. You are a Librarian of the Blood Ravens, and I would be disappointed if you stopped thinking about it before you have solved the riddle,” replied Gabriel, laughing faintly.

  “I am frustrated that you decided to destroy it so quickly, Gabriel. I think that we could have used it to learn more about what we are facing here. Knowledge is power, and we sacrificed some of that power today.”

  Isador’s honesty touched him, and Gabriel slapped his friend heartily on his shoulder. “You may be right, Isador. My decision was made in haste. There is much that I do not understand on Tartarus, and I fear what I do not understand—such is the bane of our Chapter. It is the other side of our nature, and that part of us with which we must all struggle. Speed is very important on this expedition, with the storm only two days away, but I was wrong not to give you more time. It will not happen again.”