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Redeemer – Guy Haley

About the Author

An Extract from ‘Dante’

A Black Library Publication

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Redeemer

By Guy Haley

There were chords of pain that played for Astorath alone to hear. Music that troubled the dreams of insane composers haunted his waking hours. If it played anywhere, anywhere at all, then he would hear it. Most often he heard a lonely tune wrung from one miserable instrument, but at times these soloists would be joined by others to make quartets or sections, and in the worst of days an entire, melancholic orchestra would gather. Then the music would sing most urgently to him across time and space. Always it was discordant, tragic, full of pain and anger, notes played out of sequence as less-talented hands fumbled their way over a maestro’s work. The music recalled something great nonetheless, and was all the more painful for imperfection.

These outpourings were for others to tame. The duty of his brother Chaplains was to get the strains to play in tune, to conduct the suffering towards a last crescendo. When the brothers in black and bone took the lead, the music would climax and cease, and in the ceasing Astorath the Grim would know that all had returned to rightness.

Sometimes the music did not stop. Sometimes it rose to unbearable heights, past all hope of redemption, down to the blackest pits of despair, where it continued, polluting all around it with pain.

It was Astorath’s role, as Blood Angels High Chaplain, to end these painful discords. His solemn duty was fratricide. His axe tasted noble Space Marine blood as often as it did the vitae of the Imperium’s enemies. ‘The Ender of Songs’, the aeldari called him, and apt though that was, he had a better-known title.

To the Chapters of the Blood, he was the Redeemer of the Lost, and he was loved and loathed in equal measure for his excellence at his duty.

Astorath slept his way across the light years. Wherever he went, his sarcophagus travelled with him, seated in the place of honour at the heart of the Eminence Sanguis.

Only a few of the most high Blood Angels had their own personal sarcophagus. Astorath was naturally among them. The exterior of his sarcophagus was decorated with stylised sculpture that depicted the warrior inside. Although distorted by being wrapped around the lid, it was unmistakably Astorath rendered in the abyssal black of polished carbon.

The sarcophagus was set at an angle of forty-five degrees at the centre of a ring of carvings depicting the High Chaplain’s responsibilities. In Astorath’s chamber all was chill. Frost coated the carvings. Red lumens bathed the room in a bloody glow, and black shadows hid from it. The colours echoed Astorath’s inner world. While Astorath slept, his dreams were of black and they were of red, and nothing else, until somewhere a warrior’s soul broke, and the music began again.

Each song was different. He heard this one as a screeching passage that rose and stopped, and began again, over and over, a piece badly practised whose end could not be attained. It penetrated the bloody red; it sent ripples over the oily black. The music called to him for it could call to no one else. The song was a plea for mercy only he could grant. It woke him.

Stirred from his slumber, Astorath opened his eyes in the blood-threaded amnion nourishing his body. The sarcophagus’ machine-spirit detected the movement, and began the process of full awakening. Drains opened at the base of the sarcophagus to suck the amnion away. The mask covering Astorath’s mouth came free, the amnion level dropped past his chin, and he took his first free breath since he had lain down to rest. The needle interfaces of monitoring machines slid from the sockets of his black carapace. Thick tubes twisted like umbilical cords suckled greedily at the arteries in his forearms, thighs and neck as he slept. They throbbed now as they returned his purified blood to him, and detached from his skin with sorrowful kisses.

Light falling on the black sculpture changed, fading from sanguine to gentle red gold, the colour of the sunlight of Balor. Inset wheels spun within the sarcophagus’ ornate decoration, locks disengaged, a heavy bar disguised as the figure’s crossed arms lifted and rose. The lid slid up and away.

Astorath sat up. Pale skin and jet-black hair glistened with residual preservative fluid.

‘Sergeant Dolomen,’ he said. His voice was quiet yet filled with authority. Vox-thieves hidden in the room’s decoration opened up communication with the command deck.

‘My lord,’ Dolomen responded.

‘A brother is lost. Prepare our Navigator for fresh directions. We have work to do.’

The Eminence Sanguis appeared on no roll of service for the Blood Angels. It was not expected to take part in the Chapter’s battles and rarely did. It had been requested, built and commissioned solely as the personal transport of the High Chaplain, and had conveyed many holders of the office across the galaxy.

Sepulchral halls linked sombre chambers. Every being upon that craft, whether unmodified human, tech-priest or Angel of Death, understood the solemnity of their mission and carried themselves with utmost dignity. The Eminence Sanguis was a near-silent ship, where robed figures went on solitary errands. Its machine-spirit was as cold as the void outside its plasteel skin and as distant as the stars it sailed for.

It was a fast ship, quick in the void but swiftest in the warp. Although it was of low mass, in the realm of the warp concepts had more importance than physical truths, and the ship was heavy with duty. So singular was its purpose it cut easily through the conflicting currents of ideas that made the immaterium treacherous. Not even the madness of Chaos could deny the weight of Astorath’s work. Aided by the importance of its mission and the faith of those aboard, it passed through the worst of storms, and made impressive speed whatever etheric tempests curdled the Sea of Souls.

In the nightmare of the warp, the Eminence Sanguis turned aside from its prior destination towards the source of the song.

Astorath’s armour terrified the mortals who came to greet him. There were only three of them stood at the edge of the landing platform when he emerged into the dank forest, and they were frightened, for death stood behind him. His battleplate’s ceramite was carved to resemble musculature exposed by flaying, and was painted to match. His jump pack was an arcane design, its form dictated more by art than function, and to the cowering men and single woman, he appeared to be blessed with wings. The pinions were immobile, sculptures of metal as crow black as his hair, yet to them they seemed real. His pauldron was a field of skulls. His kneepads featured more of the same. The axe he carried was as tall and heavy as the largest of the mortals, with a haft fashioned to resemble a spine. All he carried and all he wore spoke of the ending of life.

The world of Asque only accentuated his deathly aspect. The Blood Angels Stormraven squatted on a rusted landing platform half overtaken by forest growth. Support pillars were engulfed by rippled grey wood. Slimy creepers strangled guard rails, and buried machinery in wet mats of giving flesh. The ship was black, covered in red saltires and glowering skulls. Upon the ancient pad it resembled the ornamentation on an overgrown tomb, peeking out through a cemetery’s ruin.

Mould crawled up every surface of the arching roots holding the fungus-trees off the ground. Clouds of their spores floated past in granular mists. The three mortals wore heavy respirators to protect themselves against the spores, but Astorath had no need of such protection, and stood before them bareheaded, a winged giant clad in skinned muscle. In the gloom of the fungal forest, his pale skin appeared blue. He was flanked by Sergeant Dolomen and the Sanguinary Priest Artemos, his only companions from the Chapter. Together they represented the triumvirate of bone, blood and death that shaped the Blood Angels’ soul. They were doom incarnate.

Astorath did not look human, and he was not. The mortals were right to be afraid.

‘Where are our brothers?’ Astorath asked them through bloodless lips.

Despite their protection, the mortals’ eyes were rimmed red with spore exposure. The leader, the female, spoke with a voice roughened by poor quality air. She was old, but had that wiry strength certain women keep until the end of their lives.

‘They are this way, my lord,’ she said, pointing a wavering arm behind her to tangles of roots and trunks receding into the spore-blue air.

Astorath looked into the forest. Far off, the music played.

‘Take me there,’ he said. ‘Dolomen, guard the ship.’

The men and woman looked at each other nervously. None of them wished to be the one to start the march. The idea of telling Astorath what to do, even when asked to provide guidance, seemed to fill them with terror.

‘Take me now,’ Astorath said.

Relieved to be commanded, the civilians led the way down a run of rockcrete stairs that was so buried in rotted matter, fungal stands and roots it appeared no more than an animal track.

‘You, female. Tell me what happened here.’ Astorath’s footsteps were heavy, thumping on the soft ground like dying heartbeats.

‘Your brother took the ordes meat–’ began the woman.

‘From the beginning. Tell me of this place. Tell me what happened to you before my brothers came. It will help me understand what has befallen them.’

So she did. Her name, she said, was Srana. Astorath filed it away with a million other names, never to be forgotten.

‘This world is not a bad world,’ Srana began. ‘I have read of others. I know there are worse places than Asque.’

They were obliged to duck through interlaced rubbery vines whose rough surfaces adhered to them. Astorath and Artemos shoved their way through with difficulty, for the vines would not break, and the paths the humans took were too small for them. As Astorath forced his way out, the woman glanced back, to see if she had spoken out of place. Astorath’s return stare had her turning her face away twice as quickly.

‘Before the silent ones came, we lived in sunlight, up there.’ She pointed upwards, where arrow-straight trunks lifted off from their cradles of roots, though she did not look, too afraid or too saddened by what had happened. ‘Up there are our homes. That is our world, not this place. Up there, there is no mould. The air is clear. The weather is warm. We had good lives.’

‘The nature of this world’s purpose?’

‘The production and export of chemical products derived from the great fungi,’ she said. ‘Their wood is no good. It is black-hearted, rots quickly. No use for building, but when bled and boiled it gives useful liquors. We had our duties to the Imperium, and we fulfilled them.’ She dared to look back again. ‘All we wish is to do so again, to live in the sun and pay our dues to the God-Emperor. We worked hard. We prayed hard. I am so sorry about what has happened here. Please, let the Emperor know we are sorry for whatever we did to anger Him and bring this disaster on ourselves. I am so sorry the Red Angels came to help us, and this happened. I–’

‘What happened here is not your fault,’ said Astorath bluntly. ‘You have done no wrong. If you had, I would kill you, but you need not fear punishment from me. Unless there is some element of your tale that is deserving of harsher judgement?’

She shook her head. ‘None, no, my lord. We did nothing. We are victims. I think. Maybe the meat… Maybe we poisoned him?’

‘All humanity is a victim in these dark times. If you speak the truth, you have nothing to fear. You did not poison him. Continue your tale.’

‘The rift came, and the sky turned sick. The silent ones came soon afterwards. They appeared in nightmares at first, pale, naked things, the size of half-grown children, pot-bellied, long arms, horrible in proportion, but their faces were the worst. They were blank, no eyes or nose, only a curved mouth full of jutting teeth. We all dreamt about them, standing in the corner of our sleeping chambers, staring at us.’ She shuddered at the memory. ‘It didn’t take long for us to realise that we dreamed of the same things, of silent, pale faces with no eyes. A few panicked children was all it took. Word got round. We were afraid.

‘We worked on as best we could. Then the tithe ships stopped coming. Then the merchantmen. We produce enough food for ourselves, but are dependent on outsiders for many other things. We sent out messages from our astropaths in the capital, but got no reply. They tried harder, until one by one they went mad, and so Count Mannier ordered no more attempts be made, in order to save the last.’

‘When was this?’

‘Decades ago. I was young then, old enough to remember how things were. There are no sky-speakers now. Some of what I relay to you was told to me by my mother.’

‘You speak of matters dealt with by the planetary government.’

‘My mother was adviser to the count. I am of noble birth,’ she cackled. ‘Though you would not believe it now.’

‘Continue.’

‘The dreams became worse. Then they stopped being dreams. We woke in the night to find the silent ones looking at us. They’d vanish, after a while, but they were there. We had picts and vid-captures.’ She went quiet. ‘Then, after a little longer, they started to hunt us.’

They passed along a road broken to useless slabs by fungal roots.

‘We killed a few, they were flesh and blood it seemed, and it gave us heart. But they came and went as they wished. We struggled to trap them. We couldn’t see them. They picked us off at their leisure. We were afraid to sleep. So many of us died in nights of terror, and we were driven from our homes, down here. They didn’t come down here so much, on account of the spores maybe. We managed to hold on, but we were dying slowly. The count took the chance with our last astropath and sent the message – I was a girl still then. It took so long to answer, we didn’t think anyone would come. Then your brothers arrived, and they were cunning and brave and killed many of the silent ones. Everything looked like it would be good again. It was, for a while. They took back this township for us, so we could look on the sun. They drove the creatures deeper into the forest. We began to rebuild.’

They reached a stairway choked by the outgrowths of the tree it circled, and started to climb upwards.

‘Then your brother took the ordes meat, and suddenly it wasn’t good any more.’ She smiled weakly. ‘Come on, it’s this way.’

When Astorath and Artemos arrived in the reclaimed township they found their brothers out on patrol, and so settled down to wait for their return in a room in a derelict habitat.

‘We should consider the possibility that this entire planet must be purged,’ said Artemos, speaking by private helm-to-helm vox ‘You heard what she said.’

‘The old rules are not so rigidly applied,’ said Astorath. ‘Word of daemons has spread now. Once, even you would not have known of them, brother. How can knowledge of them be hidden when they walk openly across the galaxy?’

‘Knowledge isn’t what bothers me,’ said Artemos. He lifted a ragged curtain and glanced out through a cracked window. The habitat overlooked a landscape of lacy branches that moved in the light of the planet’s moon. ‘This whole place might be tainted. You know what it’s like when they get their fingers in the minds of men.’

‘If every world that had known the touch of the daemon since the rift opened was laid waste, there would be no Imperium left,’ said Astorath. ‘Purity of thought is the best safeguard. The question of whether this world is tainted is for others to answer. It is not obviously so, and we do not have the resources to deal with it if it is. Our mission is to secure our missing brother.’

Artemos shrugged. ‘You are right. I speak prematurely. The things here could have been Chaos-warped predators, rather than daemons. Or they could be a strange kind of xenos. Some of those things the aeldari consort with.’ He shook his head and let the curtain drop. ‘Xenos or daemon, they are filth, all of them. The galaxy is not what it was. The old evils come sneaking out of the shadows.’

‘Put these questions from your mind, Brother-Priest,’ said Astorath. ‘Whatever they are, they are not our business. Mercy for the lost is our sole concern.’

They waited a few hours for the Blood Angels assigned to Asque to return to the outpost. A single half-squad had been sent, and there were three of them left, all Primaris Marines. They were not surprised to find Astorath at the township.

‘I am Brother Fidelius, 11th squad, Third Battle Company, acting sergeant,’ said the warrior who led them. ‘These are Edmun and Caspion. You are High Chaplain.’

‘I am,’ Astorath confirmed.

‘Then I greet you as my lord.’ Fidelius dropped to his knee and bowed his head.

‘May the blessing of the Angel’s virtues and graces fill you and carry you through battle, my brother. Now rise.’

Fidelius stood again.

‘Who is the one who is afflicted?’ Astorath asked.

‘Brother-Sergeant Erasmus.’

Astorath paused before asking his next question.

‘And is Brother-Sergeant Erasmus like you, or like me?’ The gravity of his question seemed to distort space around them.

‘He is not a Primaris brother, my lord, if that is what you mean,’ said Fidelius.

‘So you were deployed as a mixed squad?’

‘At our captain’s command,’ said Fidelius. He looked at his brothers. ‘We three were among those raised from the Great Blooding. We lack experience. Erasmus came to teach us.’

‘You fought as mortals on the walls of the Arx Angelicum?’

‘We did,’ said Fidelius. ‘There were four of us Primaris Marines, until the xenos things slew Brother Aelus. The four of us and Erasmus were deemed enough for the task at hand, but these things are slippery, and claimed their due in blood. Erasmus said…’ He shared a look with his brothers. Astorath recognised it, for he had seen it many times – the look of a Blood Angel exposed for the first time to the effects of the Rage. ‘Erasmus said Aelus made a grave error, and that we must learn from it. He said that Aelus’ death was fair exchange for the thousands of their dead, and we will avenge him. We were looking for the silent ones when you arrived. They stay away from the population now. We’ve cleansed most of this sector. We’ll get the rest.’

‘Are they daemons?’ asked Artemos.

‘I know little of daemons, but I don’t believe so,’ said Fidelius. ‘They are easy enough to kill, though they are stealthy. They’re psychically able, they cloud the mind, they’re never where you think they are, but they are of flesh and blood. There’s not very many of them. Dangerous to unmodified humans, but little threat to us. I can imagine how easy it was for them to wreak havoc on a planet this sparsely populated, but we would have had this continent secure and been on our way to the other hemisphere if it weren’t for…’ He paused again. Disquiet showed in his eyes. ‘If it weren’t for this.’

‘What became of Aelus’ gene-seed?’ asked Artemos.

‘It was lost. We tried to save it, but we could not. We have no Priest with us. I apologise. Perhaps it could have been retrieved, but I do not have the skills.’ Fidelius turned his attention back to Astorath. ‘If you have responded to our message, then the worst has happened. I didn’t believe it was possible. Erasmus was so noble.’

‘You thought it something else?’

‘I am no expert, and hope deceived me, perhaps, but I hoped so. If you are here, it is not some other thing. It is the Black Rage.’

‘It is,’ Astorath confirmed.

‘I am surprised you arrived so swiftly. I sent word only days ago.’

‘I did not get your summons,’ said Astorath. ‘I require no message. The music of torment called me, so I came.’

‘It happened here,’ said Brother Caspion. They were in a house built around the topmost trunk of the arrow-like trees. The spongy wood, slender as a man at that point, made a central pillar around which all else was constructed. Broken pots lay about, and a smear of blood darkened the wall. ‘Brother-Sergeant Erasmus had been behaving erratically all day, but we did not know what we were seeing. If we had, we would have acted.’

‘Be calm, young brother. This is not your doing,’ said Astorath.

Caspion nodded gratefully. ‘They were giving us a feast in our honour when Erasmus turned. He ate the meat, then something happened, and before we could react he had killed two of the mortals, shouting as he did about traitors and being trapped. We tried to restrain him but his strength was too great and he escaped. The natives have not returned here since it happened.’

‘Relations seem good otherwise,’ said Astorath.

‘Fidelius convinced them Erasmus was influenced by the creatures. They were shocked a Space Marine could be so affected, but they believed it,’ said Edmun.

‘I do not like to trade in falsehood,’ said Fidelius. ‘Forgive me.’

‘A lesser evil. Let them continue to believe it is so,’ said Astorath. ‘It would be for the best if that remains the story they tell after we are gone.’

‘Better they fear the alien than their protectors, brothers,’ said Artemos.

‘Better still that the twin curses of our gene-line remain secret,’ said Astorath.

‘They feared that their meat offended us, and triggered his behaviour somehow,’ said Edmun. ‘Is that how it happens?’ he asked tentatively.

Astorath watched the Primaris Marines closely. Though the new Space Marine breed seemed resistant to the flaw, they were still taught the rituals and the severity of the curse. To little effect, it seemed. So many had been inducted so quickly that they’d had no time to learn properly.

‘The women, Srana, she mentioned this ordes meat. Was there anything unusual about it?’

‘They said it was a delicacy. They were excited. The animal has to be hunted, and they have not been able to hunt since the creatures came. It was bloody, and tough, but of good savour,’ said Fidelius. ‘Could it have been the cause?’

‘It is most unlikely,’ said Astorath. He paced around the room and stopped by the bloodstain. ‘Whose blood is this?’

‘Brother Erasmus’,’ said Caspion, ashamed. ‘I injured him.’

Astorath pulled a strip of spongy fungus wood from the wall. He chewed on it, letting snatches of experience be teased from the coagulated blood. There was little genetic material, and therefore little could be gleaned. Beneath the ponderous thoughts of trees, Astorath got impressions of bewilderment and fear, then the anguished tune of Erasmus’ soul played loud and drowned out all else, and he spat the chewed wood out. ‘The Rage comes unannounced. You all partook of the meat?’

Fidelius nodded.

‘Then it was not the cause. You are unaffected? No increase in your thirst?’

‘None, my lord. It does not affect us the same way,’ Fidelius said, almost apologetically.

Astorath looked around the room. ‘And Erasmus burst out of the door? After you wounded him?’

‘Yes, my lord. Erasmus then dropped to the forest floor,’ said Fidelius.

‘One hundred and thirty feet,’ Edmun said disbelievingly.

‘He had his battleplate,’ said Fidelius. ‘No weapons except his combat knife. He vanished. We’ve combed the area thoroughly, grid by grid. Edmun is a good tracker.’

‘I lost him,’ Edmun said. ‘We followed his trail to the bounds of the next settlement, where the trail gave out. The enemy tried a sortie against us there, and we were forced to fight. When it was done, I could not find his tracks again.’

Astorath nodded, still examining the room.

‘I am finished here. Tell the people of this village they have nothing to fear. Soon you will be able to complete your mission, for the greater glory of the Emperor. First, you must direct me to where the greatest concentration of enemy are.’

‘But why?’ said Fidelius. ‘They are to the north, Brother-Sergeant Erasmus ran south.’

‘He will be where the enemy are,’ said Astorath. ‘We are warriors. We suffer a warrior’s curse. Though they may be violent towards their own, those under the influence of the Black Rage are still servants of the Emperor. They fight for Him until the end, however misguidedly.’

Astorath prepared for the giving of mercy. He had stripped the top portion of his armour off, and sat cross-legged in a habitat yet to be reclaimed by the planet’s depleted people. Artemos held out his bare arm for Astorath to cut, and with the Sanguinary Priest’s blood Astorath anointed his skin. He lapped at Artemos’ wrist twice to blunt his Red Thirst, and, through the vitae of Sanguinius running through Artemos’ veins, to remember the sacrifice of their primarch. The curse music sang in Astorath’s mind as the blood filled his mouth.

‘You can’t go alone,’ Artemos said. He wiped his arm and clad it in ceramite again. The ritual was a businesslike affair. Under such circumstances, the armouring of the soul was done with the same practical battlefield efficiency as the reloading of a boltgun. ‘The settlement to the north is full of the enemy. We should all go.’

‘I have fought some of the most celebrated heroes of the Blood, brother. These creatures are feeble. They will not slow me, and when I find Erasmus I will best him.’ The blood symbols were drying on Astorath’s skin. He sheathed his blade, and began to collect his armour pieces.

‘Let me come with you.’

‘This is my duty alone, brother.’

Artemos helped him don his back-plate and breast-plate, holding them in place while Astorath bolted them together with a sanctified power driver.

‘Then take some of Erasmus’ Primaris brothers with you, as a precaution against mishap. We cannot afford to lose you, when we have lost so much already.’

Astorath looked over his shoulder into Artemos’ eyes. ‘Are you seriously suggesting a mere sergeant might get the better of me?’

‘No, my lord.’

He returned to his armour. ‘There will be no mishap. The Primaris Marines will remain here. It is inevitable that they will see the effects of the Black Rage first-hand one day, for we all do, whether as witnesses or sufferers. I would prefer them not to yet. The Primaris brethren brought hope to our Chapter. It is best if as few of them as possible see the curse that afflicts the rest of us. The Chapters of the Blood have been through much these last centuries. Allow us a moment of resurgence before we must face the monsters within again.’

‘The truth will out.’

‘Truth always does. However, it will be many years before these Primaris Marines return to Baal. They have done good work here, but this entire world must be freed. They may die before they can pass the information on to others of their kind.’

‘Are you sure I cannot accompany you?’

Astorath ran his thumb lightly down the edge of the Executioner’s Axe. Blood beaded on his skin.

‘I go alone, Artemos.’ He pushed his still-bleeding hand into his gauntlet and locked it into place. ‘Do not ask again.’

The forest of Asque was silent. So dominant were the fungiforms and moulds that animal life was scarce. Astorath walked roads high over the ground choked by fungal growth. Symbiotic relationships with the fungi were common in the few animal species which thrived, and ever adaptable humanity had taken their lead. The road was carried on buttresses encouraged to grow from nearby fungus-trees, but the network required maintenance; in the years since the rift the sky-roads had buckled and the marks of human habitation everywhere were vanishing.

It took so little to erase humanity’s efforts from existence. Astorath’s duties, though obscure, were ultimately a part of the fight against that, to prevent mankind vanishing from history like so many hundreds of species before it.

The town rose in delicate towers high above the canopy. Once he had passed under the shadow of the first, he encountered the enemy.

A pallid, bloated shape disentangled itself from the shadows and leapt at him. Astorath’s head buzzed with psychic interference. He could not see it clearly at first, but the efforts undertaken to improve a Space Marine’s mind were as great as those that went into rebuilding his body. He shook the thing’s influence off, and its form was revealed to him.

It was vaguely humanoid, mushroom-pale, bloated, disgusting as so many xenos were. Hooked claws in its wrists squealed off his armour. The mouth snapped at him, every bit as hideous as Srana had said.

‘Surprise is your chief weapon, creature,’ said Astorath. He grabbed it by the throat and held it aloft. It was surprisingly strong, and would easily slay a mortal man. ‘But you have little else, and nothing that can do harm to me.’

In his grip the beast was helpless. It thrashed about and hissed until its breath was spent and it was dead.

He dropped the pasty thing. It sank bonelessly into itself and began to emit clouds of yellow spores from its body.

Astorath strode on, following strains of a funereal tune only he could hear.

‘Brother Erasmus!’ he shouted. His amplified vox echoed down silent streets, scaring up rare aviforms and startling parasitic growths into shedding slimy seeds. ‘Brother-Sergeant Erasmus! Return to us! Return to your Chapter! Return for the Emperor’s mercy!’

His shouting attracted the creatures. En masse they clouded his mind more effectively, but he aimed his blows at the blurred shapes and cleaved them down anyway. They sought to bury him under a weight of their bodies, and did, but they could not penetrate his armour. Soft fingers pried at his seals. Sharp claws scraped at his ceramite. The Emperor’s armament held firm against their efforts and they died by the dozen.

‘You do not learn,’ he said, striking them down. ‘You cannot harm me.’ He paced his blows to preserve his strength, weathering the soft drumming of their alien fists on his battleplate and chopping them down with a forester’s steady rhythm.

Killing all the way, he passed into the inner districts of the town, where grand squares were upheaved by the unchecked movement of living supports. Towers were choked by the rubbery vines, great tangles of them bursting from every window. The further he went the more creatures appeared, all attacking without consideration for their feebleness. His boots crunched on human bones made soft by decay. Thousands had died here, and it sorrowed him.

Finally, a rune flicked into being upon his helm-plate. A chime announced his true quarry was near. He activated his jump pack and burst from a knot of the creatures.

Black wings spread, prolonging his short flight. He directed himself to a broad platform overlooking a further square, and there he found Brother Erasmus.

The fallen sergeant raged and screamed, shouting imprecations at enemies ten thousand years dead. The blood red of his armour was obscured by milky alien blood and brilliant smears of yellow spores. His knife had broken halfway along the blade, but he wielded it as if it were the finest sword. A hundred of the fungoid creatures swarmed him. Astorath wondered how long Erasmus had fought. It was not unusual for a brother gripped by the Rage to fight until his hearts burst, the ferocity of the affliction being enough to overtax a Space Marine’s body, but if Brother-Sergeant Erasmus had fought since the day he had fallen, he showed no signs of fatigue, and still killed with great efficiency.

Astorath watched awhile. Though the Black Rage was a terrible curse, those afflicted displayed an echo of the primarch’s martial glory when they fought, and the sight never failed to move him. The music of Erasmus’ suffering sang loudly in his mind.

‘Terrible, and glorious,’ Astorath said, then called out, ‘Brother! I am coming to you. Stand fast! Soon your suffering shall be done.’

He ignited his jets, and thundered down into combat.

They fought side by side, purging the town of its infestation. Astorath’s axe buzzed through the xenos trailing lightning, and in short time the battle was done.

The High Chaplain faced the lost brother.

‘Father!’ Erasmus cried, his voice choked with spiritual pain. ‘Have you come? Is Horus dead?’

‘He is long dead,’ Astorath said calmly. He held his axe across his body in both hands. ‘Come to me, and know an end to suffering.’

‘If he is dead, why do I see him, standing over me? Why does my blood leave my body? Oh father, why have you forsaken me?’

The lost brother threw himself at Astorath, and the day’s real fighting began.

Erasmus was possessed by the death memories of Sanguinius, and full of desperate strength. Astorath judged Erasmus too strong to grapple, so took his time, softly singing the hymns of ending as he struck away pieces of the warrior’s armour and bled away his might with gentle cuts. There were quicker ways to end one of the lost, but Astorath would do so only in extremis; the warrior must be comforted, and blessed. The final rites of death were as important as the rites of apotheosis and must be correctly observed.

Astorath fought to preserve the secrets of his Chapter. He fought to end the rampages of those who could not find a noble end in battle, but most of all he fought to save their souls. Kindness guided his axe above all things.

‘You are a traitor, a betrayer, a worm in the eye of father,’ shouted Erasmus. ‘You consort with evil for your own benefit while the Imperium burns! Why? Why? Why?’ Erasmus directed a flurry of blows at Astorath. The High Chaplain stepped back, mindful that even a broken blade propelled with such strength could break his armour.

‘I am not Horus, brother,’ he said softly. ‘I am your redemption.’

He stepped back and around, swinging his axe with the motion, and took Erasmus’ leg off at the knee.

The Space Marine fell face forward and howled piteously with sorrow. He tried to rise.

‘I die! I die! Slain at the hand of my brother!’

Astorath stepped in, kicked the knife from the Space Marine’s hand and with another blow shattered his armour’s power plant, expertly deactivating the battleplate without triggering an explosion. A good part of Erasmus’ strength was thus denied him.

‘Why?’ sobbed Erasmus. ‘Why does it have to end this way?’

Astorath squatted down, rolled Erasmus over onto his back and pulled free his helm. The warrior’s face was swollen with vitae, his eyes blooming with burst blood vessels. His eye teeth were at their fullest length. But there was yet nobility in him. There always was in the lost.

Astorath rested his palm on the warrior’s brow. ‘Peace, brother. Be at peace. I am not Horus. I am not the Emperor. I am High Chaplain, and you are Brother-Sergeant Erasmus. The wars you speak of were over ten thousand years ago. Now your fight is, too.’

Erasmus’ eyes cleared a little.

‘What… what has happened to me?’

‘The Black Rage. Our father’s death, echoing down time.’ He gave the Space Marine a solemn stare. ‘Now, listen to me. We are Space Marines, we do not pray. We hold no person to be a god, and all gods to be monsters. We give praise to no one but mortal heroes, and we thank the Emperor as a man and not a divine being. But we will pray now, you and I, for peace in death.’

Astorath spoke sacred words. Through the fog of the rage, Erasmus repeated them, and a little more lucidity returned.

‘Our lord’s anguish…’ Erasmus said. Tears spilled down his cheeks. ‘I feel what the Angel felt. I can’t stand it. He is sorrowing for me, for all of us. End it swiftly, please!’

‘Fear not, my brother, mercy is my purpose.’

Astorath rose. The Executioner’s Axe descended.

The music stopped, and a new weight was added to the High Chaplain’s burden.

He recovered Erasmus’ head, and voxed Artemos.

Artemos performed his grisly work back in the village. The Primaris Marines guarded the habitat door. The people kept away. They knew something sacred was happening within. Reductor blades sawed though bone, and ribs cracked wetly to give up precious gene-seed.

‘Fear not, brothers,’ Astorath said to them. ‘Your brother died as all Blood Angels should, in communion with the Great Angel, Sanguinius.’

‘High Chaplain,’ said Fidelius. ‘May I have permission to ask your guidance?’

‘You may.’

‘Will this happen to us?’

Astorath answered thoughtfully. ‘Your creator, Belisarius Cawl, has many qualities, but he is a braggart and wears hubris like a gown. It is impossible to eliminate Sanguinius’ suffering from our souls. But it may be that you are immune from its effects.’

‘Then, if we shall never see what the Angel saw, can we truly call ourselves Blood Angels?’ asked Edmun.

‘You are Primaris Marines, but you are Blood Angels first. The blood of Sanguinius flows in your veins as it does in mine. You may never suffer the way that Erasmus did, but rest assured, you are my brothers,’ said Astorath.

He made sure to meet the eyes of each of them, and as he did he heard a few distant notes of pain – a foretaste, perhaps, of what might come to pass.

Artemos joined them. ‘It is done. Erasmus’ gene-seed is secure. We will return his armour to the Chapter.’

‘Then we are finished here,’ said Astorath. He looked to the sky, and opened his vox-link ‘Sergeant Dolomen, we are returning. Prepare the Stormraven for flight. Please inform the Eminence Sanguis, we depart immediately. More duty awaits us.’

Somewhere in the immensity of space, a new tune had begun to play.

About the Author

Guy Haley is the author of the Horus Heresy novels Titandeath, Wolfsbane and Pharos, the Primarchs novels Corax: Lord of Shadows, Perturabo: The Hammer of Olympia, and the Warhammer 40,000 novels Dark Imperium, Dark Imperium: Plague War, The Devastation of Baal, Dante, Baneblade, Shadowsword, Valedor and Death of Integrity. He has also written Throneworld and The Beheading for The Beast Arises series. His enthusiasm for all things greenskin has also led him to pen the eponymous Warhammer novel Skarsnik, as well as the End Times novel The Rise of the Horned Rat. He has also written stories set in the Age of Sigmar, included in War Storm, Ghal Maraz and Call of Archaon. He lives in Yorkshire with his wife and son.

An extract from Dante.

A new life was beginning. Night was falling, and a boy and his father watched the skies.

The giant red orb of the sun passed behind the disc of Baal. Firstnight came to Baal Secundus with eclipse, Baal’s shadow creeping over the Great Salt Waste of its second moon. Heat radiated rapidly through the thin atmosphere. The temperature dropped fast and the night wind blew hard, chilling the man and his son. The sand roamer behind them rocked in the breeze. The rusty springs of its suspension squealed in sympathy with the pained birth-cries coming from within.

The boy glanced back at the roamer. A rough ovoid of crude plates lifted high over the ground on six wheels, it was his home and refuge from the moon-world’s killing landscapes. The open door cast a rhomboid of yellow light across the waste, softening the fractal harshness of the salt pan’s surface. As if provoked by his gaze, the door banged shut, cutting off the warm light. The metal muffled the cries only a little.

The boy’s father looked back also, then wrapped his arm tighter around his son, pulling him close.

‘She will be fine,’ said the man. ‘Your mother is strong. Your brother will be here soon.’ The boy was old enough to guess the words were intended to reassure his father, not he.

His father’s body was ravaged by residual fallout from a war, twelve thousand years lost. Deep lines marked his cheeks. His lips were scabbed with plates of skin. Amid the stubble of his cheek, a trio of ulcers glistened, blood-red flowers blooming in a poison field. A thick mane of brown hair, shot with premature grey and coarsened by salt, framed his face. There were black gaps in his yellow smile. At a little over thirty standard years the man was old and regarded himself well past his prime. His goggles, a priceless family heirloom of age-yellowed, scratched plastek, rested on his forehead, exposing an area of paler skin around his eyes less damaged than the rest. For all the cruelties of the land and the hard life it had given him, in his perfect, amber eyes there dwelt humour and a tender love for his child. Privation was all he had ever known. His humanity had not suffered for it.

‘Come away from the roamer, Luis,’ the man said softly. His chapped hands adjusted the scarf around the boy’s face, bringing it into a sharp triangle on the bridge of his nose. He smiled and touched his knuckle to his son’s forehead. Long, dark robes swathed them head to foot. Although the sun killed slowly out there in the Great Salt Waste, the nearest mortis radzone was far away. They were blessedly free of the need to wear their rad suits.

‘But da, mama–’

‘Hush,’ said the man, and he gripped his boy to him more tightly. ‘Let the life-bringer do what she does. Your mother is safe in her hands, you’ll see.’

A long, agonised moan came from the roamer to belie his words. The vehicle rocked hard, a sudden violence that subsided into ominous stillness. The wind soughed through the struts of the vehicle, setting the charms around the cab rattling. The boy’s father had made them. There were strings of scrimshawed bones and chimes of wind-scoured glass of blue and turquoise, plucked from the buried ruins of forgotten lands. But the boy’s favourites were two angels of metal scrap leaning forwards on the engine casing, frozen in the act of taking flight. From their outstretched arms, wings of blood-red ribbon snapped. In the growing dark they ceased to be familiar, becoming unnerving harbingers of terrible news – the very angels of death. The boy’s fears for his mother grew.

‘It will be fine, you’ll see,’ repeated his father. ‘Come on, let’s walk a little way.’

The boy was seven or thereabouts. Like his father, he had little idea of his true age. The seasons of a moon-world are complex and not easy to reconcile with the rhythms of Terra, a place far distant from their thoughts in any case. The home of the undying God-Emperor, Terra was to them a mythical world beyond conception. Nevertheless, their bodies remembered. Their unthinking genes had yet to throw off the stamp of their birthplace. Man was not made to survive on the Baalite trio. A genetic code forged over millions of years had had scant thousands to adapt to this hellish place, and frantically drove the creatures it made to reproduce before it was terminally compromised. Already the harsh environment had set its claws into the boy, eroding his features almost quicker than they could form. Life was short for the Baalites. They instinctively felt that it was not meant to be so and sorrowed, though they did not know why.

Their mortal shells yearned for the ease of a world that had ceased to exist millennia since. Old Earth was gone, and Terra as dry and dead as Baal Secundus. In those terrible times there were only deserts for men to inhabit. Deserts that had been made from paradises.

‘Come away a little further,’ said the man, when they had gone a way from the camp. ‘We’ll see them soon, up there, on Baal.’

‘But we are not supposed to,’ said the boy. He cast another glance backwards. His father gently but firmly pushed him on. Beyond their sand roamer were a score of similar vehicles. Some were bigger and some were smaller than their family home, but none greatly so, and they all followed the same basic pattern save the hulking salt hauler, in which no man lived. The orange light of fire scorpion lamps burned in the roamers’ portholes and through cracks in their worn sides. They were the sole, lonely signs of life. Sometimes Luis felt his clan were the only people anywhere.

‘I know you are not supposed to go too far, and you are wise to remind me,’ said the man. ‘But you are with me, and so you shall be safe.’ The man squeezed the boy’s shoulders. He took the boy further out from the camp. Plates of salt cracked under their feet. In every direction flat salt pan stretched away, a desiccated infinity as fractured as the skin of the man. During the day the sun streamed through clear skies stripped of protective ozone in the Long Ago Wars, as merciless to the land as it was to the flesh. At night the temperature plunged, and then the salt sucked greedily at the atmosphere’s meagre moisture load. Complex hydrates formed in the wastes, as precious to the salt clans as the chemicals they scraped from the ground. The latter gave them wealth, the former water. Hard as it would be for an off-worlder to believe, theirs was a rich clan.

The cries had faded with distance, and so the man stopped his son with gentle hands. ‘Here will do,’ he said. He sat down with a satisfied sigh. Rest was a luxury he rarely enjoyed. ‘Will you sit with me?’ he said. The wind gusted harder, cooler with every second. It peppered the boy and his father with salty grit.

Luis looked out over the desert. Visibility was good. The giant red crescent of Baal proper poured sanguine light over their world. ‘We can see for miles,’ he said. ‘Nothing approaches.’ He looked up and searched the sky. The painful blue of the day was ceding the bowl of heaven to night. The sky was red, the stars were red. The broad slash of the Red Scar bled its ruddy light across the cosmos. ‘No blood eagles fly. Fire scorpions are rare in the salt wastes.’ He stamped. ‘This ground is too salty to support trap-clams and too hard for catch spiders.’ He looked at his father. ‘I judge it safe. I will sit with you.’

The father blinked away grit from his eye, but did not put on his goggles. He grinned in delight at his son’s answer. ‘Soon you’ll know more than I.’

‘I already do,’ said the boy confidently. The man laughed, openly, the kind of laughter than invites participation, but the boy did not join in. His appraisal of the deadly lands around had been a momentary distraction. Worry for his mother returned. Luis sat down and nestled into his father.

White streamers of salt snaked across the ground. Their hissing could not quite drown out the cries coming from their roamer. He watched it nervously. For all the pressure the world exerted on its inhabitants to mature quickly, he was still a boy. He needed his mother.

His father laughed. ‘I will decide when you know more than I.’ Following his son’s eyes to their roamer, the man took his son’s hand and pulled his attention away, directing it out to the horizon and the planet looming over it. ‘Tonight is a good night, an auspicious night.’ He folded his arms around the boy, feeling him shiver in the dropping temperature. They leaned into each other, seeking warmth.

‘Why?’

‘Watch!’ said the man. He pointed to the brother planet, bringing his arm in line with his son’s eyes. The shadow of Baal’s own night crawled over the surface. It too was a world of deserts, red and vast, an all-encompassing landscape stretching from pole to pole. Mottled dun patches marked out mountains, blacker areas were depressions, modest spreads of frozen carbon and water capped the points of its axis, but no matter their hue all were various shades of red.

‘The first wonder of tonight,’ said the man. The dayside of Baal gave no hint that men lived there, but as night made its solemn procession across the surface, a single light blazed out from near the equator.

The boy had seen it on several occasions before, when the relative positions of Baal and Baal Secundus were favourable. His heart leapt every time.

‘The Arx Angelicum! Fortress of Angels!’ the boy said.

‘The very same,’ said his father. ‘The great castle where the angels of light and blood live, those who bring the Emperor’s judgement to all corners of the galaxy. Think, Luis, they are of Baal!’ he said proudly. ‘Why, there are even men there who might have come from our own tribe, once.’

‘Would they know us?’

‘No!’ said the man with a smile. ‘They have become mighty, risen past the concerns of mortal folk. They were chosen to become the sons of the God-Emperor, given great power and glory. They are the most wrathful of the Emperor’s servants – the noblest, the purest, the best.’ He whispered the truths of it into the boy’s ear, his words displacing the cries from the roamer and the sinister hissing of the wind-blown salt. ‘They are the lordliest of lords. The Emperor protects, the priests tell us in Selltown and Kemrender, but they,’ he pointed again emphatically, ‘they are how He protects us and billions and billions more like us, all over the galaxy. But they would not know us, not as kin. They are given great lifespans, and the concerns of our lives are beneath them now.’

The boy looked up. Blood-red stars looked back.

‘Are there really people there?’

‘There are people everywhere!’ said his father. ‘On worlds around every star, worlds of every kind.’

‘I have seen the fortress before,’ said the boy, his wonder departing as quickly as it had come. Fear for his mother constricted his young heart.

‘Have you seen this?’ said his father knowingly. He directed his son’s gaze to the farthest side of Baal, where night was deeply entrenched. Bright points moved across the world, some so close to one another they merged. Smaller lights twinkled as they ascended from the fortress on Baal.

‘Stars,’ said the boy. ‘That is all.’

‘Not so,’ said the man. ‘Stars cannot be so close to a world. Those are the great starships of the Blood Angels themselves.’

‘Are they bigger than our roamer?’ asked the boy.

The man laughed at his innocence. ‘I would think so, my son. In those great void chariots the lords of Baal ride to war. You see a very special thing. Rogus saw them gathering last night. I thought you might like to see. Now, some will say the angels fly to war on wings of shining light, but I know that is not true. They fly in machines that vent fire, roaring louder than the thunder. Who can stand against such warriors?’

‘No one,’ said the boy, entranced again. ‘There really are people out there, in the black?’

‘Yes!’ said the man.

‘I would like to go there one day.’ He turned around in his father’s arms. ‘Maybe I will one day. I could go to the brother planet and join the angels of blood. Would that not be a fine thing?’

The earnestness shining in the boy’s face unnerved the man. Encouraging such an ambition had not been his intention. His scabbed brow lowered over his perfect eyes.

‘More die in the attempt than get to join the angels,’ he said. ‘Only a very few make their way to the Place of Challenge at Angel’s Fall, fewer still survive the challenges, fewer yet are chosen.’ Reflexively, he hugged harder. Already he feared to lose his wife that night; the thought of losing his son as well terrified him. ‘Better a life of hardship you know than the almost certain chance of doom. It is best to venerate the angels from afar.’

‘Many people fail?’ said the boy, refusing to be discouraged.

‘Nearly all the people fail. Only the most exceptional survive to be chosen, and special as you are, chance will doom you before you have the opportunity to prove yourself.’

Luis was silent a moment. He craned his neck around to look at the lights over Baal. ‘Nearly all, but not all. Someone has to become an angel.’

Click here to buy Dante.

A Black Library Publication

First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd, Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK.

Produced by Games Workshop in Nottingham.
Cover illustration by Adrian Smith.

Redeemer © Copyright Games Workshop Limited 2019. Redeemer, GW, Games Workshop, Black Library, The Horus Heresy, The Horus Heresy Eye logo, Space Marine, 40K, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, the ‘Aquila’ Double-headed Eagle logo, and all associated logos, illustrations, images, names, creatures, races, vehicles, locations, weapons, characters, and the distinctive likenesses thereof, are either ® or TM, and/or © Games Workshop Limited, variably registered around the world.
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