Mephiston: Blood of Sanguinius Read online

  Myos nodded. ‘General Kruk did not realise things were as dire as you say, but he knew we were surrounded. He sent us this way to scout the perimeter. We followed the edge of the forest until half an hour ago. Why?’

  ‘There is an old ruined statue,’ said Antros. ‘A fist, jutting from the ground. Somewhere near here. Surrounded by burned tree stumps.’

  Myos nodded. ‘I know the place, my lord. It’s not far. Near the old pit.’

  Antros tried to steady his pounding hearts. ‘Lead me there. I have to see it before I go. The fleet leaves at dawn.’ He was talking more to himself than the soldiers. ‘Tonight is my last chance.’

  The men exchanged concerned glances, but Myos ordered them to make for the docks. Then he trudged back the way he had come, signalling for Antros to follow.

  They waded on through the ash-drifts, the soldier struggling to keep pace with Antros’ broad, powerful strides. After a while Antros spotted a building up ahead. It was a squat, pugnacious-looking tower, constructed of battle-scarred ferrocrete and bristling with guns. As they crested a hill the rest of the camp came into view: more watchtowers, surrounding rows of blockhouses, all of it circled by trenches and razorwire.

  On the far side of the camp he could see the flicker of lumens tracing across the ground. Captain Vatrenus and his squads of Tactical Marines were making their final sweep towards the shattered defence lines, scouring the fumes for signs of the enemy as they ordered the few remaining Guardsmen towards the docks. Antros frowned, knowing that he should be down there with them. He had done as ordered and found the only strays he could. Now he should go back, but the visions haunted him. They had filled his thoughts since the moment they landed on Thermia, growing more forceful with every day that passed. He must see the place before he returned to Baal.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Myos, looking along the earthworks towards a dark smudge against the grey clouds. Antros adjusted his retinal lenses and drew the shape into focus. It was another group of Guardsmen, clad in the same black flak suits and helmets as Myos. There were about a dozen of them, huddled together for safety, all wearing straps of grenades and armed with oilcloth-shrouded lasrifles.

  ‘Sergeant Athor’s men,’ said Myos. ‘Why are they just sitting there?’

  Antros had seen Mephiston’s tactics many times since they landed and he understood what was about to happen. ‘Bait,’ he said, waving for Myos to keep his head down.

  Beyond the distant group of Guardsmen there was a black wall of fir trees, marking the edge of the forest that blanketed most of the planet. It was here, beneath their branches that Thermia’s vile parasites started to stir, smelling the brain matter of the stranded troopers. The Chief Librarian had named them sepolcrali, long before the Blood Angels even landed on Thermia, using the ancient Baalite word for creatures of the grave. It was clear that the name was significant to him, but nobody had the courage to ask him why.

  Antros could not see the sepolcrali yet, but their hunting call was unmistakable: an eerie, metallic scraping, like blades being sharpened. After a few minutes, the sepolcrali emerged from the trees. They could almost have been mistaken for more flurries of ash flakes – pale, serpentine shapes, coiling through the grey drifts. But Antros noticed how they would rise up at one end, tasting the air and searching for a scent. They had no face, or any other features for that matter. They were opalescent tubes, ten or eleven feet long, looping and undulating as they snaked across the ash mounds. Antros was reminded of the sandy shapes that roll through the shallows of oceans – tubular, featureless, inhuman.

  Myos grabbed some magnoculars and watched the sepolcrali slip into view. Captain Vatrenus and his Tactical Marines were half a mile away and it was clear that they would not reach the Guardsmen before the sepolcrali did. ‘We can’t just leave them there,’ hissed Myos.

  ‘Wait,’ said Antros.

  The troopers on the ridge had seen them too. The sergeant barked an order and the men spread out along the earthworks, each dropping to one knee and shouldering his lasrifle. Antros could see the xenos more clearly now, unfurling themselves across the ash with a gentle, rippling motion. They were grotesque – billowing spirits, glittering in the moonlight. He could understand the tales of supernatural beings that had littered the battle reports. The sepolcrali looked like ghosts.

  He felt Myos bristling with hatred for the creatures and concern for his brothers down below.

  ‘Wait!’ he repeated.

  The sepolcrali were still a hundred yards or so away from the Guardsmen when the massacre began.

  Myos cried out in surprise as Mephiston knifed down from the ash clouds. He was like a raptor, silent and lethal. He fell feet first, chin raised and eyes closed. He had the handle of his sword, Vitarus, pressed to his chest, as though he were a figure carved into a sarcophagus.

  If the sepolcrali sensed his coming, they had no chance to react. Mephiston landed with an explosion of ash and immediately began to kill. He whirled through the pre-dawn glow, gliding easily amongst his foes as though clad in silk rather than heavy, ancient battleplate.

  The sepolcrali recoiled and tried to flee but it was useless. Mephiston’s sword sliced through their translucent flesh like smoke. The blade shone with the force of Mephiston’s mind, blazing and flashing as it tore the ash worms apart. They died in spectacular fashion, bursting into glittering clouds that whipped away on the breeze. Antros had seen similar scenes several times since the start of the campaign, but he still watched with unabashed awe. Mephiston looked like a terrible deity, fallen from the heavens to mete out the Emperor’s wrath. As Mephiston whirled and parried, Antros muttered a prayer, thanking the Emperor for showing him the glory of this divine retribution. Then he noticed ranks of colossal figures emerging from the banks of ash – Captain Vatrenus’ battle-brothers had reached the earthworks, storming through the darkness, bolters raised. Like the shock troopers, the Blood Angels had no need to fire. Only a few seconds had passed since Mephiston appeared, but he had already destroyed most of the sepolcrali.

  ‘Wait,’ hissed Lieutenant Myos. ‘Prion!’

  A wounded Guardsman had emerged from the tree line. He was much closer to the swarms of sepolcrali than Mephiston or any of the other Blood Angels.

  Mephiston had his back to the trooper as he sliced open another of the monsters but Captain Vatrenus saw him and must have voxed the Chief Librarian, because he whirled around.

  ‘Too late,’ muttered Antros. He strode forwards and raised his staff.

  Mephiston saw the danger too and summoned wings from the darkness, but the white shape had already reached the injured soldier.

  The man saw the sepolcrali rushing towards him through the ash blizzard. He opened his mouth to scream and the creature formed into a narrow, dart-like shape that plunged straight down Prion’s throat. It was a revolting sight, but Antros could not look away. It looked like Prion was vomiting in reverse. A quivering column of ash thundered down his throat, causing him to judder and spasm. He collapsed onto the ground, dead.

  Mephiston swooped through the air, firing his pistol. Gouts of incandescent plasma thudded into the corpse, blasting chunks of flesh from the body and jolting it back across the moonlit hillside.

  There were dozens more sepolcrali to kill but Mephiston was now far more concerned with shooting Prion’s corpse.

  A second wave of the things erupted from the ash in front of Mephiston, blocking his way. He killed them without raising a weapon – blasting them aside with a wave of his hand. They disintegrated into a cloud of embers, but hundreds more swirled into view, determined to keep Mephiston away from the corpse. He quickly became mired in a wall of glittering shapes.

  The hillside lit up as a fusillade of bolter shots tore through the night. Captain Vatrenus’ squads had dropped to their knees and opened fire, attempting to cut a path through the sepolcrali so that Mephiston could reach the body.


  ‘Damn it,’ muttered Antros, frustrated by the delay. He looked at Myos. ‘Wait here. We may still have time when this is finished.’

  ‘Finished?’ gasped Myos. ‘My lord, do you understand what the dust worms do?’

  Antros gave no reply and waded down the slope.

  As the Tactical Marines’ firestorm lit up the scene, it revealed something grotesque: Prion’s corpse had begun to quiver and mutate. Antros hissed in disgust as it lurched to its feet, already starting to bulge and tear. White light spilled from holes in the dead man’s flesh and his head lolled backwards at a hideous angle, swinging from side to side as he began to run down the slope. The Guardsmen on the earthworks opened fire, howling curses. Flashes of las-fire slammed into the animated corpse, but the impact just made it swell and mutate all the more. It blossomed into a misshapen giant, thundering through the ash as the Guardsmen’s shots grew wilder and more panicked.

  Mephiston ripped through the enemy lines and was hurtling towards the giant, but he was too late. As the bloated corpse reached the earthworks, the men on the counterscarp tried to flee, but the giant moved with shocking speed and grabbed two of them in its enormous hands. It rocked back on its heels and threw them up the hill towards the rolling mass of sepolcrali.

  The dust worms shot out to catch them, slicing into their bodies like spears.

  Even before the men died, they began to tear and reform. Within seconds their animated corpses were thundering down the hill after the fleeing Guardsmen. The first of the giant revenants was still hurling other Guardsmen towards the storm of sepolcrali and, by the time Mephiston reached the earthworks, there were half a dozen of the lurching colossi. With every moment that passed they grew even larger. The one that had been Prion was already nearly twenty feet tall and still growing. It towered over even the largest buildings in the camp, swaying as though drunk. It swung its lolling head around, trying to spy other victims to toss to the dust worms.

  Klaxons blared, summoning Guardsmen from the blockhouses. Las-fire began lacerating the darkness, slicing chunks from the revenants, but the shots only seemed to add to their ghastly vigour.

  Antros was still hundreds of yards away, but he raised his staff and summoned a blast of psychic fire from its charmed metal, hurling it into the sepolcrali as he ran.

  Mephiston looked back at the Blood Angels and must have voxed them a command because they stopped rushing towards Mephiston and turned to face the storm of dust worms at the edge of the forest. They raced up the slope, closed on their foe and attacked with flamers, spewing columns of promethium at the sepolcrali. The flames enveloped the ranks of xenos, creating a blinding wall of fire that drove them back into the dead trees.

  As Captain Vatrenus pushed back the ash worms, Mephiston placed himself directly in the path of the massive revenants. Six of the twitching behemoths were pounding towards the rows of blockhouses. Some of them were now thirty feet tall and the ground shuddered as they advanced. Mephiston looked tiny in comparison, but he waved away the Guardsmen that had approached until he stood alone. He shimmered with power, as though his body were a window onto an inferno. The light burned brightest in his sword and as he held the blade aloft it shone like a beacon, causing the revenants to stagger and shield their deformed faces.

  Antros had never been so near the Chief Librarian in combat before and he saw that, even now, dwarfed by these monstrous corpses, Mephiston was utterly cold.

  Antros’ thoughts were interrupted by a sound from behind him. He whirled round, staff blazing, and saw Myos stumbling after him through the ash, refusing to sit by and watch as others fought his foes. He muttered a curse, then turned to look back at the fight.

  The first of the giants had nearly reached Mephiston when the Chief Librarian calmly raised one hand and clenched it in a fist. The monster’s head detonated. Ash, blood and brain matter poured down its chest as it dropped to its knees. The impact of its fall shattered windows and shook doors from their hinges. Without a brain, undead became simply dead. Mephiston stepped aside as it crashed onto its chest.

  After the first monster hit the ground, Mephiston leapt onto its back and launched himself at the second. The revenant reached for him with broken, deformed arms, but Mephiston summoned wings, swooping around the blow and plunging Vitarus into the giant’s neck. The revenant staggered back and tried to shake him off, but Mephiston wrenched his blade through skin, bone and cartilage, decapitating the giant with one precise slash of his sword. Soldiers bolted for safety as the head crashed down, flattening a storehouse in an explosion of wood and roof tiles.

  The third of the giants collapsed into a molten heap as Mephiston boiled its blood from within and the next two went the way of the first, their heads imploding as though hit by heavy artillery.

  Mephiston fought calmly and with precision, his eyes half-lidded as he sliced the corpse giants apart.

  As the fifth giant crashed to the ground, Mephiston saw that the sixth had taken its stolen body and fled for the forest. It was almost at the tree line, but Antros knew the vile thing would never make the trees.

  Captain Vatrenus and his men had penned in most of the other worms and Antros saw his chance. ‘The fight is over,’ he said, turning to face the dazed-looking Guardsman. ‘Lead me to the ruin.’

  ‘What of your brothers, my lord?’ asked Myos, nodding at the Blood Angels.

  Antros shook his head. He knew that he was meant to seek this place alone. Vatrenus and the others were not part of the visions that had driven him here. He had seen the moment so many times. There was Mephiston, the daemonic foe and him – no one else.

  The hillside lit up as a fusillade of bolter shots tore through the night. Both of Captain Vatrenus’ squads had dropped to their knees and opened fire, joining Mephiston in the final slaughter.

  As their firestorm lit up the scene, Antros followed Myos in the opposite direction, dashing for the nearby boundaries of the forest.

  Myos sprinted through the trees, crashing through the ash-laden branches and trampling over charred roots. After only ten minutes or so, they reached a broad, ash-filled clearing, hundreds of feet wide and ablaze with moonlight. At the centre of the clearing was a stepped crater, spiralling down into the ground, coated with the same banks of smouldering ash that covered all of Thermia. Reaching up from the centre of the crater, rising way above the treetops, was the crumbling stone fist that haunted his dreams.

  What did you see?

  The vision hit Antros with even greater force – the same hideous figure, the same whirling cloud of spirits, filling his head with flames and fury.

  Momentarily blinded, he stumbled to a halt at the edge of the pit. Visions and prophecy were as familiar to him as anything in the physical world, but none had ever arrived with this violence. It was overwhelming. The vision faded and he hurried down the slope towards the ruins of a small temple.

  He approached and looked inside. It was a tragic kind of place, with its shattered columns and exposed rafters but, as he peered through the half-open doors, he saw that it was abandoned. Apart from a few ash drifts that had forced their way inside, the building had been forgotten. Creepers had enveloped much of the stonework, smothering the wrecked remains of control panels and research equipment. The temple had been claimed by the forest.

  Antros and Myos stepped inside. Most of the equipment had been smashed long ago but the upper parts of the walls were carved with beautiful friezes. The God-Emperor’s hands spread over their heads, reaching out through the stars, spreading the seeds of his fledgling Imperium.

  There was a noise outside the temple and Lieutenant Myos backed away from the door, his lasrifle raised.

  ‘They’re coming,’ he said, his voice taut.

  Antros dropped into a battle pose as huge numbers of sepolcrali rose from the pit, swarming up over the stone fist. Until now, Antros had only seen the sepolcrali attack in small group
s, but this was a host. Hundreds of them were billowing up from the shadows, straining and sniffing at the scent of mortal flesh.

  Antros spoke into his vox. ‘Captain Vatrenus?’ As he expected, the only reply was a howl of interference. Thermia’s ash storms were a toxic cocktail of chemicals and particulate matter. The comms networks had all been shot since they landed. Antros cut the signal and waited to face the sepolcrali alone, waving Myos back into the temple.

  Antros was about to step out and launch his attack when he noticed how oddly the xenos were behaving. As they spilled around the moonlit fist and filled the quarry, they began to knot together like fibres, twisting and tightening.

  As the ash worms grew in number the coiling mass gradually expanded, moving closer to the doors of the temple. Antros readied his pistol. ‘You will not find a Blood Angel such easy prey,’ he muttered.

  They had now filled the clearing with such a dazzling glow that Antros found it hard to look, but he did not need to see them to know that the prophesised moment had come.

  What did you see?

  The vision rocked him again and his mind pounded with the sense that something momentous was about to occur. The sepolcrali were touching the doors. He could hear their pale forms, brushing against the stonework.

  ‘Stay inside,’ he growled to Myos. Then he stepped out to face them.

  The creatures ignored Antros and hurtled towards each other, colliding in a tornado of ghostly shapes. They formed a vortex, spinning around a figure he could not quite make out. This was the malignant horror he had dreamed of. Finally, he would meet his daemonic accuser. Past and present collided as the events of the vision unfolded before Antros.

  In the visions he had thought the ash worms were flanking the figure, but now he saw they were attacking him – diving and lunging, trying to pierce his flesh. As the vision played out, Antros found it hard to stand. He was drunk on prophecy, blinded by premonition.