The Rite of Holos Read online

  ‘Such is the way of Sanguinius,’ intoned Mazrael. ‘The damage will be severe.’

  ‘But not irreparable,’ said Caedis.

  ‘And so we will triumph where these lesser humans could not,’ said Teale.

  ‘Do not dismiss them, Sanguinary Master. That the Praetors of Saint Catria contained the revolt at all is close to a miracle.’

  ‘And yet, lord, they would ultimately have failed.’

  Caedis nodded distractedly. His pulse sounded loudly in his ears, his attention was fixed on the blood of the hybrid. What would it taste like, human blood spiced with alien genes…?

  ‘One concerted breakout attempt and the Praetors’ work will be undone. This hybrid was surely a test, a probing of the line. The Catrians’ victory has cost them dear – there are too few Praetors left to finish the enemy. They stand in triumph upon the brink of disaster. More hybrids will come and find their weaknesses, and then finally the purestrains. They will be overwhelmed.’

  ‘There is barely a soul upon this planet,’ said Teale. His blades ran along the underside of the hybrid, slipping easily between the thing’s twisted ribs. Its stomach slid out. Teale pushed it to one side and reached inside the chest cavity. ‘Two or three hundred thousand. This world is not worth the effort of saving.’

  ‘There are fewer now. And where are the men?’ asked the Reclusiarch.

  ‘There is some minor aberration in the populace. Women are by far in the majority. Men rarely survive to adulthood and those few examples which do are feeble-bodied,’ said Teale.

  ‘Mutation?’ said Mazrael distastefully.

  Teale pushed his arms deeper into the hybrid. ‘Inquisition records place them well within pure-blood norms. The disparity in sex distribution stems from environmental effects. They are not mutants.’

  ‘Then they deserve our aid, as all true humans do,’ said Mazrael. ‘And aiding them will bring us closer to the conclusion of our crusade. What are your orders, Lord Chapter Master? Shall I awaken Brother Endarmiel?’

  Caedis did not reply. He stood with his hand upon his chin, gazing at the slow rivers of black fluid leaking from the corpse.

  ‘Lord Caedis?’ said Mazrael. ‘Brother?’

  Caedis head snapped up abruptly. ‘Yes?’ he said, his voice thick.

  ‘Shall I awaken Brother Endarmiel? I feel we will have need of his talents in the battle ahead.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Mazrael dipped his head. ‘Yes, Lord. What are the rest of your orders?’

  ‘We shall destroy the other infected sites from orbit. Guinian, please inform Colonel Indrana. She must withdraw her troops from the cities. Have them form a cordon. Send half of our number to aid them. Tell her that she is to hold the perimeter at all costs. Any who flee the cities are to be killed on sight. If even one of these xenos escapes our wrath, it will all have been for nothing.’

  Teale pulled another organ out from the creature and put it carefully to one side. He took up a cloth and wiped down his narthecium blades. ‘I have the beast’s heart,’ said Teale. ‘I am ready to prepare for the Rite of Holos. We will sharpen the Thirst and bring our brothers to full battle readiness.’

  ‘Is there sufficient of its blood for the ritual?’ asked Caedis.

  ‘The fluids of these creatures are impure, lord – not fit for our needs. The heart can be burned, the ashes used…’

  Caedis looked to his brothers. Their eyes gleamed as if silvered, all of them eager to slake the thirst that tortured them.

  ‘Our serfs dwindle by the day, lord,’ Mazrael said carefully.

  ‘Then do what must be done.’ Caedis paused, his heart heavy. ‘The lives of a few are small sacrifice for the preservation of the lives of the many.’

  The air around the Sanctum was alive with weapon fire. Five Land Speeders wove between solid rounds and las-beams, drawing them away from the following Thunderhawk and its cargo. The speeders wove an intricate pattern, splitting from close formation as they drew close to the outer defences. Missiles streaked through the air from the Thunderhawk’s wings, obliterating a bastion and the guns within. An answering missile burst harmlessly on the craft’s fuselage.

  The Land Speeders roared on, burning gun emplacements to slag. One caught an airburst from the rebels, spinning out of control before its pilot brought it down hard on the ground. The crew pulled themselves from the wreckage and ran headlong at the enemy guns. In seconds, they were within the great Sanctum, killing all they came across.

  The way cleared, the Thunderhawk swooped low. Jets roared as it tilted its nose upward, coming to a near-hover. Lifting clamps disengaged, dropping a scarlet Land Raider onto the battlefield. The tank skidded across the mud, tracks spinning. Cannon barrels blurred as they reached their maximum fire rate, felling cult members and dragging tracks of pockmarks across the Sanctum’s stone walls. The tank drove hard at the main portal, a road tunnel that led within. It bucked as it thundered up the embankment onto the ruined road, slewing left to follow it.

  A barricade of broken statuary barred the way. Puffs of rock dust erupted in long lines across its surface as the Land Raider’s crew blasted at the traitorous Praetors behind. Their return fire was ineffectual against the machine’s armour.

  The tank drew close to the shattered barricade, and short-ranged flame cannons washed death over them, incinerating those who had not already fallen. The tank angled itself past the barricade, crashing into ancient stonework. Tracks squealed as the Land Raider pushed. Blocks toppled, bouncing from its roof, and then it was through into the tunnel.

  One by one, the enemy’s guns fell silent as the Land Speeders finished their work. Other sounds took the place of cannon fire – the roar of jets. Battle-brothers plunged from above, jump packs screaming. Mazrael was at their head, obvious in his Chaplain’s black. In their wake another aircraft streaked from the grey skies like a thunderbolt. The assault ship headed directly for the hollow centre of the shrine, braking thrusters roaring.

  Caedis’s Land Raider pushed on through the ornately carved tunnel. Statues of Saint Catria in a hundred different guises went past. Foes – traitor Catrian soldiers and poorly-armed civilians alike – shot without effect at the plasteel behemoth. They were cut down without mercy by the vehicle’s guns, crushed against its sides and under its treads. The Land Raider rumbled into the square at the heart of the Sanctum, a grand plaza two thousand metres across, the cathedral soaring from its centre. A giant mosaic of the saint’s deeds covered the floor.

  The Sanctum shuddered. Filigreed galleries crumbled as Blood Drinkers landed among the cultists from on high. Grenades shattered friezes, bolts brought saints down from their lofty perches.

  All this Caedis observed. Strapped tight into his Land Raider, scenes of violence were projected upon screens in the vehicle’s command suite. He yearned to join his men outside the tank, to sing the hymns of battle and smite the foe. All inside the Land Raider with him felt the same – Teale, Guinian, and the four veteran brothers who accompanied them – but he could not allow them the pleasure of combat yet.

  ‘The real foe lairs deeper within the Sanctum. We will proceed. Let Brother Endarmiel and the others deal with this first line of defence. Our battle is not here.’

  The assault craft spun slowly in the air above the mosaic, its thrusters burning the face of the saint. Cargo grapples retracted, and Brother Endarmiel dropped to the floor, landing upright, his heavy feet shattering tesserae that had endured for three thousand years.

  Endarmiel was ancient, even by the standards of the Blood Drinkers, crippled in a long ago war and entombed inside a towering Dreadnought walker. Within his giant body of metal, Endarmiel had fought on with distinction for more than a thousand years, his wisdom helping guide generations of Blood Drinkers to victory after victory.

  That Endarmiel was no more.

  The Blood Drinkers controlled
the curse of their founder with some success, and so Endarmiel had remained sane for a long time, but no one, not even a Blood Drinker, could resist the Black Rage forever. As the decades turned to centuries, Endarmiel’s fall became an inevitability. He was a living reminder of the darkness inside them all.

  Endarmiel strode toward the cathedral. Inside were many of the false saint’s followers. Las-bolts and autocannon rounds sparked from his walking tomb.. He strode on heedless. He roared mechanical warcries that urged the Blood Drinkers to greater fury, ancient words that evoked heroes of distant centuries, and drove a powered blood fist through the cathedral’s great door. Carved wood splintered. Rocks thrown from the building’s towers clanged from his armoured shell. Then the door was torn asunder, and he was inside.

  Caedis watched as a stick-thin man holding up a blasphemous icon was crushed under Endarmiel’s foot, and then the ancient was deep into the church’s interior and the multitude within, and lost to sight.

  ‘To the left, past the cathedral’s north tower, that is where our quarry lurks,’ said Guinian. ‘The taint of the xenos lies heaviest there.’

  ‘Then let us engage them, and rip out their throats!’ called Teale.

  Caedis directed his driver across the plaza. The tank’s weight turned tiles to powder and its guns shattered exquisitely carven stone, saddening the Chapter Master.

  Fire rained down from above. Those Praetors turned traitor had kept some semblance of discipline. They fired by rank, fell back, fired again, although their guns were little use against the battle plate of the Blood Drinkers. Here and there, a brother fell, but when the Space Marines closed into melee, the humans did not last long.

  The Land Raider smashed into an archway picked out by Guinian.

  ‘Lord, we can go no further. The corridor beyond is too narrow.’ The driver’s voice came into the passenger cabin.

  ‘Open the assault ramp!’ ordered Caedis. ‘Withdraw and support the assault.’

  Metal creaked on stone, the mechanism’s powerful hydraulics crushing it to rubble as it forced the ramp down.

  ‘Deploy!’ Caedis shouted to his honour guard. ‘Advance cautiously!’ Too often had the Blood Drinkers lost their heads on this crusade, charging in to engage and suffering at the claws of the genestealers because of it. These were his finest warriors, to be sure; if any of the battle-brothers could resist the Thirst it would be these veterans, but none who called Sanguinius father could claim to be wholly proof against its lure.

  ‘Steady my brothers!’ called Sanguinary Master Teale. ‘Hold tight to your thirst, embrace your fury, but do not succumb. Savour your anger and save it – now is not the time to strike with blade, but with bolter!’

  Caedis could feel it himself: the desire to throw off circumspection and charge forward, sword raised. More than anything else he wished to confront the enemy face to face, to rip at them with his hands, and then…

  He reined in his passion. He swallowed. His mouth was dry – he yearned for the warm slickness of blood to soothe his throat.

  ‘Brothers, ware the shadows!’ Caedis watched his honour guard deploy, taking up station behind the wide corridor’s pillars. Brother Metrion had left the Chapter banner aboard Caedis’s flagship, a flamer in his hands now instead. He took the point position, weapon ready. He was covered behind by Brother Atameo’s bolter. Brothers Hermis and Erdagon held back, blue energy playing across their lightning claws. The corridor was wide enough for groundcars, its ornate columns and carved stone screens providing ample opportunity for ambush. This was where the real test would begin.

  ‘Prime genestealer ground,’ said Caedis. ‘They will assault us first here.’

  ‘Let them come,’ snarled Teale.

  Caedis drew his sword, Gladius Rubeum. The unsheathing of it activated the weapon’s power field and the holo-generator in its hilt. Scenes of victories from the Chapter’s history played up and down the blade.

  Metrion went forward slowly, Hermis behind him, pausing to illuminate pools of darkness with gouts of burning promethium. He reached the end of the corridor, where daylight ended and only darkness remained. The others followed. They scanned every surface; walls, floor and ceiling. Attack could come from any angle.

  Caedis looked into the next corridor, but there was no light source there. The systems of his armour banished the dark, image intensifiers in the helmet rendering it in grainy green and grey. ‘I see nothing.’

  ‘Their leader is here, my lord,’ said Guinian.

  ‘The false saint?’

  Guinian nodded. ‘She watches us.’

  ‘We go on.’

  Again Metrion advanced, washing the shadows bright with cleansing flame. He stopped halfway, swiftly unscrewing his depleted promethium canister and replacing it with another.

  In that moment, the genestealers attacked.

  Autogun and lasgun fire erupted from the far end of the corridor, poorly aimed but in such volume that the Blood Drinkers ducked back to the shelter of the pillars. Guinian, Caedis and Atameo returned fire. The corridor resounded to the distinctive double-crack of bolts, lit by flashes as the rounds embedded themselves in stone and flesh, blowing both apart with equal ease.

  Caedis saw hunchbacked figures with scuttling walks. Their features were alternately lost to the grain of the lens images then blurred by the intense glare of bolt detonations, wisps of image distortion trailing brightly from crooked limbs. Only when Metrion braved the storm of fire and bathed the crowd in purifying flame did the Blood Drinkers truly see their enemy.

  Hybrids filled the corridor. Like the specimen killed by Indrana’s soldiers, they were neither human nor alien but a mixture of both, the result of the genestealers’ terrible manner of reproduction. Some appeared entirely alien. Others could perhaps have passed for human in poor light. In keeping with the populace of Catria, they were mostly female, with lank hair and bizarrely delicate features. They shrank back from their burning sisters and hissed.

  ‘This is the first wave! Hold back! Hold back!’ ordered Caedis.

  Metrion lost control and hurled himself into the mob of creatures, letting forth another cloud of fire before he cast his flamer aside and drew his knife and pistol. Caedis cursed and gunned down three of the beasts that threatened his standard bearer, but soon Metrion was lost amidst a sea of flailing limbs.

  Hermis and Erdagon went to his aid. Lightning claws flashing, they carved their way through the crowd of malformed beasts. Caedis tasted metal as Guinian unleashed a spear of psychic energy at the mob, skewering several of the half-women. Caedis advanced, Teale at his side, both firing as they went.

  Then Caedis was in the fray, Gladius Rubeum rising and falling, its energy field crackling as it ripped chitin apart like paper. Hybrids came at him from the left and the right, but all fell to his blade. One penetrated his defences, its claws gouging a line in his greave. Sparks flew from his plate as the monster severed some vital connection. The damaged leg locked for a moment and Caedis felt the support of the armour waver.

  All the while he struggled with his own rage. The Thirst battered at his reason, threatening to topple his soul into an orgy of bloodletting that would never cease. He cried out. Combat became a blur of leering faces and flashing claws.

  And then, the foe was gone. A handful of hybrids fled, Hermis hard on their heels. Guinian called for him to halt, but he paid no attention. Caedis panted lightly. Gladius Rubeum had been well-blooded.

  ‘Master?’ said Guinan. ‘What ails you? I sense turmoil about you.’

  ‘Nothing, Brother-Epistolary,’ said Caedis. His voice croaked. He licked lips that should not yet be so dry, not so soon after the Rite of Holos. He was thirsty, so thirsty…

  Teale knelt by the fallen Metrion, and slid a needle from his narthecium into the downed Space Marine’s flesh. The device hissed and a cylinder of red fluid emptied into his veins. ‘He’ll
live,’ Teale said flatly. Metrion’s armour had been split in two places. Blood oozed through the gashes, colouring the scratched metal red again.

  Caedis had to tear his gaze away. As Teale called in his acolytes to bear the wounded brother away, his own voice trembled. He had his own internal battle to fight.

  ‘Come,’ he said. ‘We must aid Hermis.’

  Guinian paused, Caedis felt something tighten at the back of his skull as the Epistolary sent his senses outwards. ‘Alas, I fear he may already be beyond our help. He has drawn the enemy out in number. If we hurry, we might still save him.’

  They ran down the corridor, caution running from them as blood runs from a cup. Caedis could feel it. Once one succumbed to the battle-joy of the Thirst, others were sure to follow. Only the great will of the Blood Drinkers’ elite kept them from rushing headlong into whatever danger threatened Hermis. The sounds of fighting grew, Hermis’s snarls and battle-oaths loud over the helmet vox.

  They rounded a corner and burst into a broad courtyard. The sun slashed the space in two, one side bathed in dazzling daylight, the other in deep shadow. Two civilian groundcars, luxury models, were parked by grand arch on the far side. Armour plating and concealed weaponry were readily apparent to Caedis’s eye.

  Brother Hermis fought in the middle of the square against a horde of monsters – hybrids close in form to their monstrous father. Hermis stood precisely where the line of light bisected the courtyard. One of his lightning claws pointed upward. Sunlight fought with the crackling lightning playing on its blades.

  The other claw was in darkness, arcing upward toward the belly of a hybrid that loomed over him, a devil assailing an angel.

  Several more alien abominations darted toward him, arms outstretched. One lay dead on the floor at the veteran Space Marine’s feet, and another was missing one of its upper arms, but fought on regardless. Hermis’s helmet had been torn from his head. Blood ran from a wound in his arm. His face was twisted with battle-joy.