1,041I remember how my father died.
Not Magnus, that slumbering weakling, too cowardly to embrace the fire of his own rage. Not Azariah Kyras, who took and shaped me into a weapon of war, yet remains blind to the reality of the galaxy around him even as he sees so much. I speak of my true, human father. Esmond Angelos, former General of the Imperial Guard, Planetary Governor of Cyrene.
I had hunted him for days when I finally found him, after fighting my way through his personal guard. I wanted to know why he would do such a thing : why he would betray the Imperium, break his oaths to the Golden Throne, throw away an entire life of dedicated service to Mankind and drag the entire world which had been placed under his care into damnation with him.
I remember how he cursed me as I walked over the broken corpses of his retinue. With eidetic clarity, I remember each word he hurled at me, calling me a fool, a mindless killer, a puppet who didn't even realize how much had been taken from it by its distant master. And I remember the look of dawning horror on his face as I took off my helmet and he recognized me.
Only then did I realize that he still loved me. The rebellion ravaging Cyrene had been started by the love of a father for his son, taken from him by the Astartes and turned into a weapon of war to serve the Imperium.
And as the light slowly faded from his eyes, as his blood flowed from the wound I had dealt him and on the marble floor of his palace, I saw the truth of the galaxy. Sons killing fathers, fathers killing sons, brothers killing brothers, on and on into eternity. The intellectual pretences of the Thousand Sons, the honor and dignity they cling to within the Prosperine Dominion; none of them are worth anything.
Strength is the only thing that matters in this galaxy, and it can only be gained through violence. Everything else is naught but lies, a pretty mask painted over the truth by those who lack the courage, the conviction to embrace it.
I am Gabriel Angelos. I am the shame of the Fifteenth Legion, the Butcher of Cyrene, the Scourge of Aurelia.
I am the Blood Raven, and in the fires of Tartarus, I shall claim my destiny.
Times of Ending : The Tartarus Reckoning
As the galaxy burns in the wake of Light's End, countless worlds cry out for aid as the enemies of Mankind emerge from the shadows. Far too many of these calls go unanswered, for the defenders of the Imperium are stretched thin, faced with many threats. Xenos raiders and heretic warbands strike with impunity, leaving ruin and despair in their wake. Tartarus seemed doomed to be one more such lost world, its people sacrificed to Khorne by the Blood Raven and his warband …
Located in Segmentum Obscurus, for thousands of years the Imperial World of Tartarus was peaceful at best, unremarkable at worst. A number of cities hosted its population, separated from each other by the great jungles that covered most of the planet's surface. Self-sufficient in terms of foodstuffs, Tartarus provided a regular tithe of lumber and Guardsmen to the Imperium, and was otherwise left to its own devices by the greater Imperium.
All that changed in 999.M41, with the arrival of the Space Hulk Judgment of Carrion in the system. The unholy amalgam of vessels had served as the flagship of the infamous Chaos Lord Gabriel Angelos, a renegade Thousand Son known as the Blood Raven. For decades, Angelos had waged war with his former mentor, Azariah Kyras, in the Aurelia Sub-Sector, but he'd left Segmentum Ultima following a failed attempt to eliminate Kyras on the dead world of Cyrene, where the Blood Raven had first turned on the Imperium.
The Tartarus SDF was immediately overwhelmed by the Judgment of Carrion, and heretic forces landed on the planet in great numbers. The Blood Raven had gathered many allies during his Aurelian campaign, and though relatively few Chaos Marines had rallied to his banner, the local PDF, having recently sent many freshly-raised Regiments to help defend the Cadian Gate, were still badly outmatched. Still, after the initial raid on Lloovre Marr, the planetary capital, during which Gabriel slew the Imperial Governor and left his palace a smoking ruin along with most of the city, they managed to hold their ground and defend around half of the planet's great cities. This was mostly due to the withdrawal of the Blood Raven and his Chaos Marines from the frontline, as well as the leadership of Colonel Carus Brom, a PDF officer who assumed the rank of Governor after the demise of the previous incumbent.
Though Angelos was young by the standards of Heretic Astartes, having plagued the galaxy a scant handful of centuries compared to the Heresy veterans' ten-thousand-years long crusade, such was the strength of his hatred for the Imperium that it had earned him the grudging respect of many of his elders. Renegades from all across the Korianis Sector and beyond had journeyed to Aurelia to meet the Blood Raven, whether to join him or kill him and claim command of his warband. Among these were a small number of Imperial Fists, who believed in Angelos' vision of vengeance against the Imperium. Though these sons of Dorn had felt their Daemon Primarch's presence on Cadia, and the call to join him pulled at their blood ties, they believed that the work they were doing on Tartarus was important enough to Khorne that it justified delaying their return to their gene-sire's side.
Black Legionnaires, remnants of Fabius Bile's operations in the Ultima Segmentum centuries prior, had also joined the traitor son of the Cyclops. Their leader was a mad brute called Araghast the Pillager, a Champion of Khorne clad in a stolen suit of Terminator warplate and armed with a pair of wicked lightning claws. Over the years, Araghast had made several attempts to usurp Angelos as leader of the warband, only to be defeated each time, yet left alive by the Blood Raven – a humiliation which only deepened Araghast's hatred, something Angelos considered pleasing to the Lord of Skulls.
Not all of Angelos' allies were fellow disciples of the Blood God. The Great Unclean One Ulkair had long been the Blood Raven's ally, its allegiance having been earned through the sacrifice of a number of Sons of Horus in a ritual that had freed Ulkair from the prison in which Angelos' own former mentor, Azariah Kyras, had bound him. It was through the aid of the Greater Daemon that the Blood Raven could control the Judgment of Carrion, and perform the seemingly impossible feat of navigation that was jumping from the Aurelia Sub-Sector all the way to Tartarus, sailing through the storms that had grown ever stronger in the Sea of Souls as the end of the Dark Millennium drew near.
Aside from the Chaos Marines and Greater Daemon, most of the forces at the Blood Raven's command were human cultists. A coven of Tzeentchian magi had pledged themselves to Angelos after he'd rescued them from certain death at the hands of Inquisitor Adrastia (that their salvation had come as an unintended consequence of Angelos' desire to offer the Witchhuntress' skull to Khorne was irrelevant : the witches had been all too aware that they would be next if they didn't prove themselves useful). Since then, they had added to their number by forcefully recruiting any psyker unlucky enough to cross their path, inducting them into their order through brainwashing by exposure to the Warp and other vile means.
It was these magi who, at their master's command, performed a ritual that tore a hole in reality and allowed Ragnar Blackmane, the Space Wolf champion, to escape his doom at Terathalion and join the Blood Raven, now possessed by the mighty Khornate daemon Morkai. Infernal whispers had guided Angelos to do this, and in the months that followed, the Young King became his favorite killer, sent to kill the Imperial commanders whose forces were a nuisance to his activities on Tartarus (though he never sent him after Colonel Brom, for reasons the acting Governor could only guess at but was certain weren't good).
Most numerous of Angelos' warriors were the human cultists of the Fiendish Legion. Recruited from the worlds left ravaged by the Blood Raven, driven to heresy by the horrors of war and the whispers of daemons reaching through the Veil after it had been thinned by apocalyptic bloodshed, they were fanatical followers of Khorne, who saw war against the Imperium as a holy duty. Their name had been bestowed upon them by the Imperium as a curse, but they had claimed it as their own over the corpses of millions of Imperial citizens.
The vast majority of the Fiendish Legion were the Wretched their minds shattered by Chaotic revelation. But one in eight were resilient souls, who had peered into the fire of the Primordial Truth and emerged with their sanity blackened and charred, but unbroken. Calling themselves the Unburdened, each bore the Mark of Khorne in recognition, and could impose their will upon the Wretched horde, forcing a kind of discipline upon the Fiendish Legion, albeit one that would make an Imperial Penal Legion look like a pinnacle of order by comparison. The Unburdened gathered in squads, claiming the best equipment available for themselves, and were capable of using tactics equal to those of any Imperial Guard Regiment.
Unlike many Chaos Marines, Angelos didn't look down on the capabilities of such unaugmented humans : perhaps this was a remnant of his time in the Fifteenth Legion, whose reliance on the Spireguard to balance their small numbers is well-known, or perhaps it was simple pragmatism due to limited resources. Of course, as a follower of Khorne, the Blood Raven was still perfectly willing to sacrifice their lives if necessary, but he treated the Unburdened with more respect than most Chaos Lords would have granted to mere mortals.
Hundreds of thousands of the Fiendish Legion had descended from the Judgment of Carrion, bringing with them mutated beasts and looted warmachines whose machine-spirits had been tainted and broken by hereteks who had once been tech-priests before succumbing to the same corruption as the rest of the Fiendish Legion. Unburdened warlords and Chaos-touched priests herded the Wretched hordes toward the Imperial cities, drawn by the promise of slaughter in the name of Khorne as much as the will of the Blood Raven.
As Gabriel Angelos took the warband's elite into the jungles, it was the Fiendish Legion that laid siege to the surviving cities. Colonel Brom did everything he could to keep them at bay, conscripting every able-bodied man and woman in the population in order to hold the walls. Casualties were immense on both sides, and with the Immaterium in turmoil from the greater events happening in the rest of the galaxy, the Veil between reality and the Warp grew ever thinner.
When Light's End struck, the witches in Angelos' service took advantage of the unprecedented Empyric disruption to summon numerous Khornate daemons to reinforce their ranks and lay waste to the cities of Tartarus. Soon after, one of Angelos' servants, the renegade Inquisitor Torquemada Coteaz, arrived on Tartarus through sorcery, having barely escaped the madness of the Angel War to join his master with a gift of eldritch tomes recovered from the Enceladus Fortress of the Ordo Malleus. After being welcomed by Angelos, the heretic Inquisitor joined the forces pressuring the Imperials, creating numerous daemonhosts from the lowly cultists.
As the revelation of the Emperor's death spread, General Brom only managed to keep some of his troops sane by reminding them of their duty, not to the God-Emperor, but to the people of Tartarus : to their husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters who sheltered behind the walls. Out of all the cities on the planet, only the planetary capital yet stood, and all of its defenders knew what the Fiendish Legion had done to the people of the cities it had captured. The thought of it happening to their loved ones was enough for the soldiers to put aside their own grief and horror at the Master of Mankind's demise.
With the last of his astropaths having perished at Light's End, Colonel Brom was grimly aware that defeat was inevitable. But he remained determined to do his duty till the end, and many of his soldiers drew strength and courage from the sight of their leader's mask of resolve, which hid the terror and doubt that haunted him day and night.
Sometimes, however, the universe does reward courage in the face of adversity.
They were out of the Warp.
The psychic shockwave of the Emperor's death had hit them halfway through following the Judgment of Carrion's trail, and thrown them wildly off-course. With the light of the Astronomican obscured by the Chaos incursion in the Sol system, the cabal's efforts to keep the ship on course had failed, and they had nearly sunk into the deepest tides of the Sea of Souls before Kyras and his brothers had managed to drag them toward comparatively calmer tides.
"We have arrived in the Tartarus system, Lord Kyras," reported the shipmaster as the data flowed in from the auspex and was compared to the ship's data-banks. The man sounded more relieved than he intended to, but Kyras couldn't blame him, given the hellish journey they'd been through.
"The Judgment of Carrion is in a long orbit around the planet."
"Where," asked Kyras, "is that ?"
"Segmentum Obscurus, lord."
Segmentum Obscurus. They had crossed half the galaxy while following the trail of the Judgment of Carrion through the Immaterium. Kyras could scarcely believe it : he had never even heard of any ship attempting a jump of that length, let alone succeeding. This went far past skill and luck and into the domain of the miraculous, except that the only god whose help Kyras would accept was dead.
Now that they were outside the Warp, Kyras could feel the light of the Astronomican, so distant as to be barely perceptible. No psyker who had ever felt the Beacon's touch could ever mistake it for anything else, yet there was something undeniably different about the radiance now, as if it shone through another prism. For some reason, it felt familiar to Kyras.
"Well, we have found the Space Hulk," said Eliphas, who stood near Kyras, his scarred face bare. "What of our quarry ? Do you feel that bastard Angelos' presence ?"
Eyes closed, Kyras extended his perceptions toward Tartarus, giving the psychic shadow of the Judgment of Carrion a wide berth as he did so. When he reached the world, he nearly recoiled : its psychic landscape was ravaged by blood and fire, echoing with the terrified cries of millions of souls and the malevolent laughter of countless daemons. Shielding his mind through the Enumerations, he forced himself to push on.
There was war across Tartarus, armies of the faithful and the damned clashing, and cities that had been reduced to monuments to carnage, their population butchered in offering to the Chaos God of senseless slaughter. To Kyras' second sight, the whole world appeared to be shrouded in acrid smoke that burned his metaphysical eyes, and he knew that he was weeping blood back on the bridge of the Retribution.
Still, he searched, until he found it. A soul, shining with dark brilliance, so painfully familiar from the years he had spent cultivating it, and the five centuries of war that had followed its corruption.
His treacherous pupil, Gabriel Angelos, the Blood Raven, was on Tartarus. And in the moment he saw him, Azariah Kyras knew that he had been seen in turn. As weak a psyker as Gabriel was, his mind had ever been razor-sharp, and the unholy boons he'd received from his patron had only made him more dangerous.
Kyras swiftly withdrew his awareness back to his body and opened his eyes, unsurprised to need to blink several time to clear his vision of his own vitae. Eliphas was staring at him expectantly, as were several of the crew.
"He is here."
The strike cruiser Retribution was among the mightiest capital ships still operated by the Fifteenth Legion. Following the Rubric of Ahriman and the devastation it had inflicted upon their ranks, the Thousand Sons had stopped using the largest ships they had employed during the Great Crusade and the Heresy, gifting them to the newly formed Imperial Navy while they instead took command of frigates and strike cruisers. These vessels carried them to the battlefields where they were most needed, along with their Spireguard comrades – though in many cases, such forces travelled aboard ships belonging to their allies, both for convenience and to reinforce the bonds of the brotherhood with the Astra Militarum and other Imperial forces. The Retribution had served Azariah Kyras well for decades in that capacity, and bore the scars of its previous encounters with the Judgment of Carrion proudly.
Kyras' cabal of Thousand Sons weren't the only Space Marines aboard the Retribution. Captain Eliphas of the Word Bearers' Ark of Testimony Chapter was also present, along with a company of his battle-brothers. Eliphas had joined Kyras' hunt for Gabriel Angelos several years before during the Aurelian Crusade, and the two warriors had developed a deep respect for each other's skills and dedication to seeing their foe brought down. When Angelos had fled Aurelia, Eliphas and his men had joined their allies aboard the Retribution as it plunged into the Immaterium in pursuit of the Space Hulk – while they had their own ships, following the trail of the Judgment of Carrion was a risky proposal, and one which mere Navigators had little chance of managing.
The journey to Tartarus had been gruelling. Following the trail of the Judgment of Carrion had been difficult enough, but Light's End had occurred while the ship was in transit, and the psychic shock, combined with the bones-deep certainty that the Emperor had perished, had nearly seen the Retribution lost. But, as Eliphas led his brothers against the daemons that had manifested through cracks in the Geller Field, battle had helped them focus, though not without cost. By the time the Retribution arrived to Tartarus, nearly half of the surviving Word Bearers had succumbed to the flaw of their gene-seed, becoming Iconoclast Marines who cared for nothing but the destruction of all enemies of Mankind.
Once the presence of the Blood Raven was confirmed, the Retribution advanced on the planet, avoiding the Judgment of Carrion. While Kyras could sense that most of its defenders were on the planet, boarding a Space Hulk was never an easy proposition, and the task force's target was already planetside in any case. However Angelos controlled the Space Hulk, it was far enough from Tartarus to avoid affecting the planet's tides too much, the Blood Raven having little desire to deal with earthquakes and tsunamis while on the world. As such, it was easy enough for the Astartes to make planetfall.
Kyras and Eliphas selected Magna Bronum, Tartarus' sole spaceport, as their landing zone. The area had fallen to the heretics during the initial stages of the invasion, but the Thousand Sons' divinations revealed that only a relatively small contingent of the Fiendish Legion had been left to guard it once the Chaos forces had finished landing from the Space Hulk. Magna Bronum's defenses were mighty enough that even a small number of heretics could hold against ten times their number, but this kind of battle was exactly what Space Marines had been designed for.
The Word Bearers descended on Tartarus in drop-pods, followed by the Spireguard and Kyras' cabal in gunships. By the time Kyras' boots hit the ground, the battle was nearly over : Eliphas had earned his rank, and after months stuck in the Warp and the mental shock of Light's End, his warriors were eager to vent their frustrations on deserving targets. With Magna Bronum secure, the Astartes had a choice : they could go after Angelos immediately, or answer the calls for help that came from Lloovre Marr, the planetary capital.
By now, Colonel Brom had learned of the Retribution's arrival, and what few long-range auspex arrays were still available to him had picked up the fighting at Magna Bronum. Though part of the acting Governor worried that these newcomers were merely more heretics seeking to take whatever prize it was the Blood Raven coveted, the situation in Lloovre Marr was desperate enough that he had no choice but to hope this was one last gift from the God-Emperor.
Though their quest demanded that they pursue Angelos at once, the Astartes still held to the oaths they had sworn to protect Mankind from the depredations of Chaos. With the Master of Mankind dead, Kyras and Eliphas felt that these oaths were more important than ever. That the people of Tartarus still fought the minions of the Blood Raven was a sign of their moral and martial fortitude, and they refused to abandon them. The objections of the Iconoclasts, who saw the threat of the Blood Raven's success as far greater than saving a few million mortals, were overruled, and the host began its advance toward the capital.
"I see a curse, born of grief hardened into spite.
I see a great beast, flying on black, blood-soaked wings.
I see its claws crack open the cage of a doom that was sealed in ancient days,
And let loose a tide of blood that will drown the sons of the Cyclops, and go on to engulf the galaxy entire."
The Prophecy of the Blood Raven, by Revuel Arvida, Sergeant of the Fourth Fellowship of the Thousand Sons Space Marine Legion, M31.
Breaking the siege of Lloovre Marr promised to be much more challenging than liberating Magna Bronum. The Fiendish Legion was present in force, its Unburdened leaders seeking to earn glory in the eyes of Khorne by sacrificing the entire city's population and making pyramids of their skulls. Daemons of the Lord of Skulls were present in ever-increasing number, rising from the blood spilled by Imperials and Chaos cultists alike – and scarcely distinguishing between the two in their rampage.
With the vox-net compromised due to how many PDF units had been slain and looted by the Fiendish Legion (to say nothing of those who had turned traitor and joined the heretics outright, either out of fear or madness), Kyras contacted Colonel Brom by telepathy, informing him of the Astartes' approach. His hope rekindled, the acting Governor redoubled his efforts to hold the enemy at bay, promising his men that help was on the way. Few believed him, but the survivors' discipline was strong enough that they held their ground against all the horrors of the Fiendish Legion.
Erik the Unburdened watched with grim satisfaction as the Wretched hurled themselves at the Imperial walls. Mere months before, many of the howling cultists had been Imperial curs, but their blinders had been torn from their eyes when the False Emperor had died and the lies which had chained them to the Imperium for so long had been turned into dust.
Now they served the one true God worthy of worship : Khorne, the Lord of Skulls, who demanded of his followers only that they kill and die in his name. They were still weak and pathetic, but at least now their deaths would serve a purpose, which was more than what they had before.
Erik knew that not all slaves of the False Emperor were worthy of ascension. Only the strong would be chosen by Khorne, for strength was the only measure of worthiness in the galaxy with any meaning. And he was strong, he knew. Once, he had been an Imperial Guardsman : just another body thrown into the grinder by a silent, absent Emperor. But now, he had stared into the blood-soaked truth of the universe, and instead of breaking like the Wretched, he had embraced it, earning the mark that shone on his brow as proof of his might. It was his destiny to become one of the Blood God's blades, spilling blood and taking skulls in his holy name –
He frowned. There was something different about the glorious symphony of battle that had echoed from the walls for hours now. A new sound had been added to it, one that felt familiar to Erik but which he couldn't quite make out. He strained to isolate and identify it –
Chainswords, and the tread of ceramite-clad feet. Yet the Lords hadn't announced their return. Erik swirled, hands drawing the pair of short swords at his belt, and beheld his death.
The warrior was just as tall as the Blood Raven and his kindred, but where their armor was blood-red or black and gold, his was a dull grey. Of more immediate concern to the Unburdened was the power maul the Astartes held in his right hand, already in motion, too fast for him to react.
Erik's skull caved in, and his soul was cast from his twitching corpse and into the Sea of Souls, where the daemons of the Dark God he'd served immediately began to feast upon it, heedless of the many horrendous deeds the Unburdened had performed for Khorne in life.
Captain Eliphas stepped over the corpse of the heretic filth, and looked at the horde arrayed against the walls of the planetary capital. Cutting a path through to reach the defenders was going to be bloody, difficult work. He smiled grimly.
So be it.
Three minutes later, the Captain was surrounded on all side by heretics, his power maul smashing bodies apart with every swing. Already, the horde was falling apart, as their leaders were targeted and slain by Thousand Sons' witchcraft and Word Bearer guns and blades. A saner foe would have broken and ran, but the rabble of this 'Fiendish Legion' were too mad to withdraw.
Eliphas' advance suddenly stopped as a tall thing with red skin, black horns, and a blade engraved with blazing unholy runes emerged from the press of the melee to stand before him.
"You will die on this world, Eliphas of the Seventeenth," it taunted him. "You will never see your gene-sire."
Eliphas didn't waste his breath speaking with the Neverborn, and went on the offensive. It was strong, far stronger than the wretches whose bloodshed had allowed it to manifest, but Eliphas was a Captain of the Word Bearers, and he had faced far worse in his years of service to the Imperium.
Moments later, as he took a moment to catch his breath, Eliphas wondered about the daemon's words. Why had it mentioned Lorgar ?
The Space Marines struck the Fiendish Legion's rearguard with all the ferocity of their kind. The Word Bearers disabled the infernal engines that had bombarded the walls for days, heedless of the casualties they inflicted on their own forces, before wading into the fray. Meanwhile, the Thousand Sons used their psychic abilities to locate the heretic leaders, as well as to banish the daemons they had summoned with great gouts of Warp-fire and rites of banishment. Accompanied by squads of the Spireguard, the sons of Magnus targeted the weak spots in the Fiendish Legion's formation, breaking it apart and throwing it into confusion.
On the walls of Lloovre Marr, General Brom witnessed the sudden panic and lack of cohesion of the foe, and, without hesitation, gave the order to charge. Caught between the Astartes and the Tartarus PDF, the Fiendish Legion fell apart. Consumed as they were by madness, the Wretched fought to the last, but without the guidance of the Unburdened, they could do little damage.
Soon, the siege of the planetary capital was lifted, and General Brom met with Kyras and Eliphas, offering his undying gratitude for their aid. There was no time for celebrations, however, for the true target of the Space Marines remained at large. Brom informed the Astartes commanders of all that had transpired on his world since the arrival of the Chaos warband, including the abrupt disappearance of the Traitor Astartes from the frontline once the back of the Imperial forces had been broken.
Why the Blood Raven had come to Tartarus remained a mystery : as far as the Imperium knew, there was nothing of note on the planet. But it was clear that time of the essence, as all Thousand Sons could feel the growing pressure in the Empyrean, the weight of Khorne's own attention. Though Kyras' future sight was still reeling from the psychic backlash of Light's End, he could still sense a great doom getting closer and closer, and the Prophecy of Revuel Arvida loomed large in his thoughts. After extracting all the information they could, including detailed maps of the region where the Blood Raven had ventured, the Space Marines left Lloovre Marr in pursuit of the renegades. Whatever Gabriel Angelos sought in the wilds of Tartarus, he couldn't be allowed to find it.
However, unbeknownst to Colonel Brom, the forces of Chaos were facing another enemy on Tartarus – albeit one who was hostile to the Imperium as well.
Farseer Macha looked at the runes, as if she could change their meaning simply by staring at them long enough. But while her psychic prowess was considerable, such was not within her capabilities, and the same symbols continued to stare back at her, as if mocking her.
She'd cast the runes many times since leaving Biel-Tan with the warhost. Like every Farseer in the Craftworld (in all Craftworlds, if what she'd heard was true), her future sight had been blocked until recently, all paths into what was to come consumed by a burning, blazing light. Now that the point of conjunction had passed, however, her ability had returned to her.
Yet all she could see was doom. She told herself that this was because the skeins of Fate were still affected by the death of the mon-keigh Emperor, and the other ruinous portents which shook the galaxy, but she couldn't quite convince herself.
Hiding her doubts behind a mask of calm, she picked up the runes and stood, looking around at the warhost, whose commanders were waiting for her. Unlike the future, their doubts were clearly visible to her, shrouding their aura like clouds of insects. They knew she had already failed in stopping the Blood Raven before : the entire Craftworld had felt the defeat of the Avatar of Khaine.
But they would follow her, because it was what the Council of Farseers had ordered, and the Autarchs had yet to outright defy their guidance, even though everyone could tell that day was drawing closer and closer with each passing cycle.
For now, at least, they had managed to recover the key to the great evil's prison. The Rangers had infiltrated one of the mon-keigh city while its defenders died to the hordes and taken the artefact from beneath the bloated cathedral they'd built since the last time the Children of Isha had returned to this world. By now, it was halfway to Biel-Tan through the Webway, beyond the reach of the fools who would release the world's prisoner.
This had only bought them time, however. Without the key, the mon-keigh had been forced to use other means to find what they sought, but based on what Macha's scouts were telling her of their advance, they'd figured it out all the same.
"Onward," she ordered. "The mon-keigh are coming, and we must be ready."
The Eldar of Craftworld Biel-Tan had come through the Webway to stop the machinations of the Blood Raven, led by Farseer Macha. The Farseer's path and that of Gabriel Angelos had already crossed once before, when she had attempted to kill him and prevent the doom her people had predicted he would cause. That attempt had failed, resulting in the defeat of an Avatar of Khaine, whose burning heart had been remade by the Blood Raven's servants into the core of his hammer God-Splitter – an insult the Eldar hadn't forgotten, even as the shard of the Aeldari God of War slowly regained its strength within its temple aboard their Craftworld.
Despite that failure, the Seers of Biel-Tan believed that Macha remained the one with the highest chance of preventing the Prophecy of the Raven of Blood from coming to pass. Her fate and Gabriel Angelos' had become intertwined during their battle, a knot of potential futures that would resolve itself on Tartarus one way or another.
The Biel-Tan Eldar, always the most war-like people of the Craftworlds, looked down upon Mankind as an inferior species, and sought to bring back the reign of the Aeldari Empire over the galaxy. Their leaders had spurned all approaches by Eldrad Ulthran to join the Second Cabal, and regarded Ynnead as a false god, dreamed up by the weak and the deluded. Thus, rather than seek to join forces with the Imperial forces on Tartarus, the Eldar laid in ambush at the one location they knew their foe would eventually come : the burial ground of the Maledictum, an artefact older than the entire human species.
The Maledictum
Even before the birth of Slaanesh, the Aeldari Empire had to contend with the Dark Gods and their minions, as they endlessly sought to invade the Materium and bring ruin to the universe. As the Children of Isha made reckless use of their immense psychic potential, secure in their belief that nothing could threaten them, they churned the tides of the Sea of Souls, allowing for the manifestation of powerful Neverborn.
The entity now known only as the Maledictum was an immensely powerful Daemon Lord of Khorne, who had been worshipped as a god by numerous civilizations across eternity. When it finally manifested in its entirety, millions of years before the Fall, defeating it took decades, and deeds of heroism and power that are now remembered only in the Black Library and the half-forgotten myths of the Craftworlds.
Upon the Daemon Lord's defeat, the Aeldari didn't banish it back to the Immaterium, knowing that doing so would allow it to return in time. Instead, they bound it within an artefact said to have been crafted by their Smith God, Vaul himself, in a previous epoch. So potent was the relic that it captured the very memory of the daemon, erasing its name so that it would only be known as that of its prison from that point forward. Over the following ages, that prison would have many appellations, its legend echoing across numerous cultures, until the Times of Ending, where it was known as the Maledictum. In that manner, a piece of the Blood God was locked away, and the power of Khorne decreased ever so slightly, much to the Lord of Skulls' fury.
Even the god-forged relic wasn't perfect, however. Every three thousand years, the seal on the creature's prison had to be renewed through a complex ritual. During the reign of the Aeldari, this was no issue, but much lore was lost with the fall of their Empire, and their descendants were far less powerful, needing to forever guard their souls against the ravenous appetite of She-Who-Thirsts. As such, the Farseers of Biel-Tan were unable to properly maintain the Maledictum's prison when their time came to perform the sealing rites, and the Daemon Lord became capable of limited interaction with the greater cosmos. It sent visions of blood and horror across the stars, and eventually made contact with the mind of Gabriel Angelos, setting him on the path that would bring him to Tartarus.
Through the sacrifice of eight Imperial cities to Khorne, the cult magi of Gabriel Angelos had finally discovered the location of the prize their master sought. The bloodshed had resonated with the very earth of Tartarus, and the tiniest part of the Maledictum's influence had stirred in response, reaching through the ancient wards that bound it – a small, insignificant sign, but one that the magi had been able to identify. With the location discovered, the Blood Raven led his Chaos Marines into the jungles, far from any trace of human civilization.
Due to the ritual method used to locate the Maledictum, Gabriel's forces were forced to advance at little more than walking pace, as their path was guided by a single blood candle attuned to the Warp currents, and which needed to be carried by one whose feet were touching the bare earth at all times. Eight magi were given this honor, moving the candle between them whenever its current bearer became too exhausted from the rapid march and the strain the Chaotic artefact put on their mortal flesh.
The white-and-green warriors of Biel-Tan struck as the Blood Raven entered the Valley of Wraiths, a location with many evil legends attached to it by the people of Tartarus. Concealed by veiling technology far superior to the best works of the Adeptus Mechanicus, they'd laid in wait for days, unmoving, waiting for Farseer Macha's signal.
Painfully aware of her enemy's cunning, the Farseer kept searching for any peril in the near future, but she remained blinded by Light's End, and her military advisors confirmed that they could see no sign that the ambush would fail through conventional means. Eventually, as the Chaos warband was halfway through the Valley of Wraiths, the Farseer gave the order to launch the attack despite her misgivings, knowing that they wouldn't get a better chance to stop the mon-keigh from unleashing a force they didn't comprehend upon an already reeling galaxy.
From the very stones of the Valley emerged scores of Wraithguards, awakened from their slumber by the psychic command of the Biel-Tan Spiritseers. They had been hidden there thousands of years ago, in order to guard the location of the Maledictum, their presence causing the rumors of the valley being haunted when Humanity had colonized the planet and their first exploration teams had approached the area. Volleys of Wraithcannon fire rained upon the Chaos forces, powered by the psychic energy of the Wraithguards' soulstones.
It was then that Gabriel Angelos revealed his own trap. Though he lacked any precognitive gifts, the Blood Raven was a master strategist, and was well aware of the antipathy of the Biel-Tan Eldar towards him. So close to fulfilling his destiny, he knew that their interference was inevitable. The disappearance of the key from where it had laid underneath an Imperial cathedral had betrayed their presence on Tartarus, and as his host approached the Valley of Wraiths, the Maledictum had whispered in his mind, warning him of their intent and giving him time to prepare.
As the Eldar launched their ambush, Ragnar Blackmane, the Young King and host of the mighty Khornate daemon Morkai, fell from the skies, having flown high in the heavens on great wings and hidden himself in the clouds, his soul-fire masked from detection by the Eldar psykers thanks to a sorcerous shroud woven by Angelos' own witches. The Secondborn plunged into the ranks of the Spiritseers guiding the Wraithguards in the valley and began butchering them at once. The mere proximity of his twinned infernal soul was enough to cause immense pain to the psychically sensitive Eldar, and with their attention already split between their immediate surroundings and the ghostly warriors engaged with the Blood Raven's warband, they were easy prey for the Possessed Champion.
With the slaughter of the Spiritseers complete, Blackmane moved on to attack the Fire Dragon Aspect Warriors who had been about to unleash their deadly weapons upon the Khornate host below.
Ragnar laughed as he killed, and Morkai laughed in turn. His claws and teeth tore through armor and xenos flesh, his muscles saturated with the daemon's strength.
The blood of Eldar tasted sweet, charged with terror at their final realization that, for all their pride, they were still just as mortal as the 'lesser races' they so enjoyed looking down upon.
He cut through their ranks like chaff, exulting in his power. Their weapons, meant for destroying the enemy at long-range, were all but useless in such close-quarters fighting, although one of them had managed to let loose a single shot at point-blank range that had burned through several layers of mingled flesh and armor – and vaporised the shooter in the process. Before his transformation on Terathalion, such a wound would have killed him instantly, but now, it was merely a persistent inconvenience.
Then, he heard inhuman screams, drawing closer. He smiled as a squad of howling females bounded toward him, holding glittering blades. Banshees, he recognized from his time among the Space Wolves.
Finally, he thought as he met their charge with one of his own. A challenge.
The sudden attack by the Possessed Champion threw the Eldar strategy into disarray. Over the millennia, the warriors of Biel-Tan had grown used to knowing their enemy's every decision before it was made, only to be deprived of that advantage by Light's End and the unravelling of Destiny's Web that had ensued. They were still capable of making battleplans, of course, but that sudden blindness had left them vulnerable to improvised tactics such as Blackmane's solo aerial assault.
The melee specialists which had been meant to jump on the Khornate column were instead redirected to deal with the Possessed Marine rampaging through their support. The carefully planned ambush of the warhost fell apart, devolving in a brutal anarchy that favored the disciples of the Blood God. Deprived of the Spiritseers' guidance, the Wraithguards' movements slowed, and they were soon hacked apart by hollering Black Legionaries.
At the same time, hooded figures within the Chaos procession threw off their cloaks, revealing a number of daemonhosts Torquemada Coteaz had created from the bodies of willing Unburdened. The heretic abominations flew into the air and began raining death unto the attacking Eldar, letting loose a veritable deluge of sorcerous fire and lightning.
Chaos Marines began to climb the cliffs to reach the Eldar, while those with jump-packs flew up on fiery wings. The Blood Raven himself was carried up by a pair of daemonhosts, and strode forth amidst the chaos of battle, drawn to the enemy leader by the ties of fate that bound the two together – and the call of Khorne, who forever demanded that his champions prove themselves by seeking the worthiest skulls to take in his name.
Inevitably, such a confrontation came to pass, as the Eldar commander herself was also seeking Gabriel, believing that only by striking him down could the disastrous ambush be turned into a victory for her people.
Macha looked up at her doom, the taste of failure bitter on her tongue.
Her staff laid on the ground, outside her reach. The priceless weapon was as broken as her own body.
"You were a fool to come here, Farseer," said the Blood Raven. His voice, like always, sounded far too dignified for a mon-keigh, let alone a bloodthirsty servant of Kharnath.
He bore the marks of their duel with pride : half his face was a mangled ruin, and his primitive red armor was charred and cracked in several places. In his right hand, the brutish weapon that held the still-beating heart he'd ripped from the Avatar of Khaine in their previous encounter blazed with infernal heat.
How Macha wished she had the Avatar of Khaine with her in this moment, but alas, the shard of the Bloody-Handed God had yet to fully recover from the damage it had suffered at the Blood Raven's hands – just like the Craftworld as a whole had yet to recover from the many, many wars its people had waged in the name of restoring the Aeldari Empire across the stars.
Macha had given her everything to the battle, and had come so, so close to victory – but not close enough. She had failed, and now she would die with her duty undone, having disappointed her people till her final moments. She wished she could curse him with her final breath, but her chest hurt too much to speak. She could only spit in his general direction, and even that nearly killed her.
"Still, you fought well," the mon-keigh rumbled. "Take solace in that fact, before the end."
The hammer came down, pulverizing helm, skull, and soulstone in one single blow. As her body died, the spirit of Farseer Macha fell from the Materium, but She-Who-Thirsts was denied her shade, as she was instead claimed by the Blood God – to burn forever, one more ember in the inferno of Khorne's rage.
It was not, as some schooled in the ways of damnation may believe, a mercy, for the Dark Gods are all equally cruel.
With the Eldar defeated, the Khornate warband resumed its advance, and soon reached the Maledictum's burial site. From the Judgment of Carrion came great digging engines, industrial machines stolen from mining sites on worlds previously ravaged by the Blood Raven. Crewed by Dark Mechanicum magi, these mighty engines began to dig. Tons and tons of earth had to be excavated in order to reach the first layer of the Maledictum's prison, and the slaves of Gabriel worked hard, all too aware of their master's impatience.
In the void, the Retribution's auspex array noticed the transport, and sent their destination to the Astartes following the Blood Raven's tracks planetside. Despite the risk of being intercepted by heretic gunships, Kyras ordered a flight of Thunderhawks to pick up his forces in order to arrive faster.
After hours of relentless digging, one of the engines' metal teeth broke as it hit a smooth white surface made of a material unknown to any of the hereteks present. No mere mortal tool or weapon could break this prison and expose the Maledictum : it would take the direct intervention of Khorne to sunder the Aeldari's ancient work, and such could only be brought about through a lengthy ritual to the Blood God. This was far from the simplistic summoning rites Gabriel's followers had performed so far, and which required little more than slaughter and howled prayers to the Lord of Skulls.
The Blood Raven had known of the obstacle's existence through the whispers of the Maledictum in his mind over the decades. In order to overcome it, he had instructed his servant Coteaz to procure a certain tome from the Ordo Malleus' archives of forbidden knowledge. The renegade Inquisitor had journeyed all the way to the Sol system, and though he'd been forced to abandon his previous plan and improvise when the Angel War had erupted, he had still succeeded.
Unlike Gabriel, Coteaz was a psyker of considerable power, who had complemented his innate might with heretical lore to become a powerful magus. Combined with his authority and influence as a Lord Inquisitor of the Ordo Malleus, Torquemada Coteaz was a powerful Champion of Chaos all on his own, worthy of leading a host of followers in his own image – yet when the Blood Raven had reached out to him, he had willingly submitted, awed by the dark destiny he could sense around the renegade Thousand Son.
For all his power and forbidden lore, Coteaz couldn't have hoped to accomplish what his master desired of him alone. During his long years of war against the Imperium, Gabriel Angelos had gathered many heretics to his side, but none among them were older than the man who was simply known as the Runesmith.
The Runesmith
Once, the Runesmith was an artisan in Tizca, the City of Light, capital of Prospero, the lost homeworld of the Thousand Sons. In those halcyon days, he worked the bones of dead philosophers and savants, crafting ritual tools for the Fifteenth Legion to carry with them to the stars, so that the dead might continue to serve the living and spread enlightenment across the galaxy.
When the Sixth Legion had attacked, he'd been one of the few civilians who had escaped through Iskandar Khayon's portal. But, in the years that followed the Heresy, the memories of his family being murdered before his eyes by the sons of Leman Russ drove the once-kindly elder to madness, and led him to swear allegiance to the Blood God. One night, he left the auspice where he'd been placed, never to be seen again by any who had known him – leaving behind him only the gory mess that had once been his caretaker, reduced to parts for his gruesome art, from which he fashioned a blade of bone that could cut through space and let him escape the world and plunge into the Empyrean.
There, the old man walked through the Plains of Blood until he stood at the foot of the Throne of Skulls. The Neverborn Legions of Khorne watched him as he walked, and left him untouched, for he wore his grief as a shroud that made him utterly devoid of the fear of death. He knelt before the Lord of Skulls, and offered everything he was to the Dark God, if only He would take away his pain.
Khorne accepted the offering, and the old man's soul was excoriated, nearly every part of him that made him human removed with blades of burning black iron, leaving only just enough for him to still be considered mortal by the laws of the Warp, all while his flesh was transformed by exposure to the Realms of Chaos into something stronger, sharper, and capable of withstanding the passing of ages without faltering. For eight hundred and eighty-eight years, the old man remained in Khorne's domain, until his transformation into the Runesmith was complete, at which point Khorne released him into the Materium once more.
His true name long since forgotten by all save the Dark Gods themselves, the Runesmith served Khorne faithfully for ten thousand years. In all that time, never did he take a life himself : always, he worked at the behest of other killers, crafting weapons and ritual tools for Chaos Lords who led entire hordes of Khornates as well as humble serial killers dwelling in the depths of Imperial underhives. Those few members of the Inquisition who know of the Runesmith's existence have very little to go on, and none of them so much as suspect the true scope and timescale of his activities.
With the help of the Runesmith, Coteaz was able to decipher the knowledge of the tomes he'd stolen from Enceladus, and together they wove the spell their master required. However, the ritual to unlock the prison of the Maledictum would take time, time which the heretics didn't have. The Blood Raven had been warned of his old master's arrival by his minions aboard the Judgment of Carrion who had received word of the Fiendish Legion's slaughter at the planetary capital.
To buy time for his ascension, Gabriel Angelos summoned the scattered forces of the Fiendish Legion still roaming the ruins of Tartarus' dead cities to him. A flock of transports erupted from the Space Hulk like newborn flies erupting from a carcass, bringing more troops from the amalgam vessel along with anti-air defenses.
Seeing this swarm of gunships and heretekal flying machines, Kyras and Eliphas were forced to land their own transports well short of their destination and finish the journey on foot, using the jungle as cover. Soon, they found themselves under attack by wandering packs of cultists and daemons, let loose by Gabriel Angelos to slow them down.
While the cultists were easily dispatched by the Astartes, they were soon faced with a far more dangerous foe : Ulkair, the Great Unclean One, who had descended to Tartarus to witness the climax of the Blood Raven's saga. Kyras and Eliphas had crossed path with the daemon of Nurgle before, and vowed revenge for the brothers they had lost to the foul creature.
Ulkair wasn't alone when it confronted the Space Marines and the Spireguard, however : Araghast and the rest of the Black Legionaries had rallied to the Greater Daemon in order to stop the loyalists from interfering with their lord's plan. So, too, had come Ragnar Blackmane, driven by the hunger of the daemon Morkai for the souls of the sons of Magnus, who had so humiliated it during the Siege of Terathalion.
Though the odds they faced were dire, the Imperials didn't hesitate. Once again, the Word Bearers led the charge, clashing with Araghast and Blackmane, while Kyras engaged in a psychic duel with Ulkair.
Eliphas breathed heavily, every inhalation sending spikes of agony through his chest. The Black Legion brute had taken one of his lungs before he'd smashed in his skull with his power maul. His helmet was gone – he'd needed to remove it after it'd been broken during the fight, and he'd no idea where it had ended up in the melee.
A Possessed whose warped armor still bore the emblem of the Sixth Legion stalked closer, eyes ablaze with predatory intent. The heretic was clearly already wounded, but in his current state, Eliphas knew his odds of defeating him were low. With Kyras' aid, things would be different, but the Thousand Son was busy fighting the towering pile of pus and rot with lightning and bellowed words of power.
So be it. A strange calm descended upon Eliphas as he beheld his foe, knowing his death was certain. He recognized what was happening from seeing it happen to too many of his brothers : the gift and curse of the Urizen's gene-seed, which removed all concerns save the fulfilment of one's duty.
He charged the Space Wolf, without shouting a war-cry for once – he needed to save his breath. The ensuing duel was short, but brutal, and ended with Eliphas being held up in the air, impaled on the long claws of the heretic as he loomed over him, his reeking breath making the Captain's eyes tear up. His power maul laid on the ground, still clutched in Eliphas' severed right hand and covered in daemonic ichor from the wounds it had inflicted before the Word Bearer had lost his limb.
"You should have run, son of Lorgar," the Possessed taunted as his claws twitched, tearing through more of Eliphas' insides. "This wasn't a fight you could possibly win."
"I didn't seek … victory," Eliphas managed to say between clenched teeth while his remaining hand reached to his belt. "Only … to get … close."
Every grenade the Captain was carrying detonated at once, along with the melta charges he'd taken from the corpses of his brothers since their arrival on this benighted world and hidden underneath his tattered cape.
Eliphas of the Seventeenth Legion died in a great ball of fire and plasma, taking not only Ragnar Blackmane with him, but also half a dozen Black Legionaries who'd made the mistake of getting close to witness the enemy officer's execution.
Even as he felt and grieved for the death of Eliphas, Kyras kept fighting, knowing that the worst insult he could give his fallen cousin would be to let his death be in vain. Through righteous fury and the arcane knowledge that was the birthright of the Fifteenth Legion, the son of Magnus managed to complete Ulkair's spell of banishment, hurling the Greater Daemon screaming back into the Warp, before collapsing to his knees, panting, tears of blood leaking from the corners of his eyes as his strained brain sought to recover from the effort.
With less than two scores Space Marines and none of the Spireguard left with him, Kyras pressed on to the ritual site, sensing the weakening of the Veil between reality and the Warp with every step. Every death that had occurred around the ritual site had fuelled it further, the spilling of blood empowering Coteaz as he read words from tomes whose authors had been driven mad by the act of writing their contents down. Kyras, no stranger to the machinations of Chaos, had been aware of this, but knew there was no other way but to push forward, even if doing so might serve the Archenemy – the alternative was to do nothing, and that would still have resulted in the ritual's climax eventually.
Finally, Kyras' diminished force emerged from the jungle and into the digging site, at the bottom of which the ritual was proceeding apace. To Kyras' horror, the battle against Ulkair had delayed the loyalists long enough for the ritual to complete. All of Tartarus shuddered as the ancient Aeldari prison cracked open, and the vile relic contained within saw the light of the sun for the first time in millions of years.
The Maledictum emerged from the hole in the white material, lifted by unseen hands. It was roughly in the shape of a sphere, its purple surface covered in Aeldari runes that wept tainted ichor which seemed to form faces.
Torquemada Coteaz recognized some of the sigils that blazed upon the antediluvian artefact. He'd seen them in the visions that had first set him on his path, back on the medieval world of Kvalgron. As the planet burned in the fires of a daemonic incursion brought about by the sorcerous works of its metalsmiths, the Inquisitor had gazed into the abyss, and found the Lord of Skulls staring back, pleased with all the death and devastation Coteaz had wrought in the Imperium's name.
Now, the symbols burned as he looked at them, and he knew that they were burning his eyes not just in the now, but all the way back to Kvalgron, in the Warp's timeless manner, all to ensure that he would be here at the appointed time. The disciples of the other Chaos Gods often believed Khorne to be a mindless brute, incapable of the subtlety of his lesser siblings, but they were wrong. The Lord of Skulls simply had no need for such base trickery, and reserved his manipulations to orchestrating only the greatest of events.
"Now, my lord !" he screamed, tasting blood as he did so from the strain on his vocal chords from chanting for so long.
Gabriel Angelos stepped into the ritual circle, ignoring the unearthly winds and streams of Warp-fire that lashed out at him, burning away the paint of his armor and charring it black even as they did the same to his scarred face. By the time he reached the center, the Chaos Lord's head was little more than a skull, yet he seemed unbothered, eyes still fixed on the Maledictum.
The Blood Raven swung God-Splitter at the Maledictum, and the world was sundered.
The Maledictum had sought to manipulate the Blood Raven into freeing it from its prison so that it might return to the Warp and reclaim its position at the foot of Khorne's throne, but Gabriel had other ideas. His ambition wouldn't be satisfied with merely liberating the Daemon Lord, especially not when he knew the chances of it killing him and all his followers as it drowned Tartarus into a Warp Storm upon its release weren't small.
Instead, Gabriel desired the power of the Maledictum for himself. The Daemon Lord had failed Khorne when the Aeldari had imprisoned it millions of years ago : its time had passed, and the Blood Raven wouldn't play second fiddle to a failed conqueror. Khorne, of course, knew of his champion's intent, but cared not : regardless of the result, the mightier champion would prevail, and spill blood in his name.
Together, Coteaz and the Runesmith had woven an additional layer into the ritual meant to open the Maledictum's prison. As the essence of the Daemon Lord emerged from its shattered prison, its bellow of triumph was abruptly silenced as its power was torn from it and absorbed into the heart of the Avatar of Khaine built into the Blood Raven's hammer, and through it passed into the Chaos Lord wielding the weapon.
Of course, it was far from easy. Ascending to daemonhood – which was the inevitable result of the ritual for Gabriel Angelos – was never a simple process, and the fact that the Blood Raven was plundering the power of an ancient Daemon Lord to fuel his transfiguration only made it more dangerous. From the instant God-Splitter struck, the Chaos Lord was locked in a terrible battle of wills with the Maledictum, where even a single slip-up would see his soul devoured and his body turned into a mindless Chaos Spawn, while the Maledictum returned to the Realms of Chaos to take its rightful place at the Lord of Skulls' side.
But Gabriel Angelos was nothing if not strong of will, and slowly, bit by bit, he began devouring the Maledictum's power and claiming it for himself. With each morsel of unholy might he absorbed, his soul came one step closer to dark apotheosis, while his body stood utterly still in a growing pillar of Warp-fire so potent it forced Coteaz to recoil, while the Runesmith, a serene smile on his age-worn features, walked straight into the inferno and appeared to be utterly consumed.
It was to this scene that Kyras and the remaining Space Marines arrived, having fought their way through Chaos cultists and daemons brought into existence by the ritual's psychic ripples. Gabriel, however, had been well-aware of how vulnerable his body would be during the ritual, and had made sure to keep enough forces at hand to hold the loyalists at bay.
At first, Coteaz led the defense of the ritual site, mustering the remaining cultists and daemonhosts. Already exhausted by the opening of the Maledictum's prison, the renegade Inquisitor poured all of his remaining strength into commanding his unholy minions to attack the Imperials. But he was so drained that his control slipped, and the loyalists watched as Torquemada Coteaz was ripped to shreds by the daemonhosts he'd created as their feeble bindings were broken.
With the death of Coteaz, the Space Marines were able to push through and reach the ritual site, beholding the pillar of Warp-fire. Seeing Gabriel's ascension had already begun, and as all their attempts to reach him inside the infernal column failed, Azariah Kyras decided he had only one option left. With a final telepathic pulse of farewell to his brethren, the son of Magnus cast his flesh aside, and, becoming a being of pure spiritual energy, plunged into the Warp's acidic tides.
Too much.
It is too much. Kyras is burning, lost in a tide of incandescent blood.
Whatever laid within the Maledictum is no mere daemon. It is a power in its own right, the curse of Khorne upon the Aeldari Empire which held Chaos at bay for untold aeons, only to give birth to the Lord of Skulls' most hated rival.
And now, Gabriel – no, he is the Blood Raven now – has devoured that great power, allowed it to reshape him into the instrument of Ruin whose rise was foretold ten thousand years ago, even as the fires of the Roboutian Heresy yet burned across the stars.
The Blood Raven looms over Kyras, the weight of his gaze pinning the Thousand Son in place. The great beast knows his old master is here, and he delights in it, knowing that the first victim of his newly claimed power will be the one who has pursued him for so long.
But Kyras knows his former student better than anyone else in the galaxy. He helped raise him to one of the finest warriors of the Fifteenth Legion, and he has spent centuries hunting him down across the stars, witnessing the atrocities left in his wake and leading entire armies against the blood-crazed hordes which gathered under his banner.
He knows Gabriel Angelos, and here, in the Sea of Souls more than anywhere else, knowledge is power.
Kyras gathers all of his strength, and strikes. His strike is not a mighty hammerblow, but instead the bite of an assassin's dagger, aimed at a weak spot nobody but him could see. It sends cracks into the core of the newly transfigured entity, and with a sound like the scream of a god, it splits into three, each one an aspect of the man whom Kyras once loved as a brother.
The pieces of the Blood Raven stare at one another. They can still become one again, Kyras knows. But the only way for that to happen is for one to subsume the other two into itself, and he is betting that his student's pride won't let that come to pass.
He is correct. The fragments tear at one another, trying to absorb their siblings' energy into themselves. But Kyras did his job well, and they are too closely matched for victory to come swiftly to any of them. Furthermore, whenever one of them seems about to gain the advantage, the other two briefly team up against it.
With a mighty roar of rage, the three fragments speed out into the Sea of Souls, beyond the sight of Azariah Kyras. With their departure, a brief moment of calm descends upon the Immaterium – but it does not last.
In the absence of the greater predator, the Neverborn come. Slowly at first, but faster as they smell his weakness – and Kyras is so very, very weak, cut off from his body as it lies dead on Tartarus. In the instant before they fall upon his soul, he turns his sight toward the faint light of the Astronomican.
Forgive me, Father, he pulses silently, hoping against hope that Magnus will hear him.
Then, in what Kyras can only describe as a miracle, he does. The Astronomican flares, and the tiniest portion of its great and terrible grace is bestowed upon the son of Magnus.
The soul of Azariah Kyras ignites with holy silver fire, and the daemonic hordes recoil as he burns, burns, burns until he is no more – nothing more than an echo in the song of the Astronomican, another verse in its infinite chorus.
The psychic backlash of the Blood Raven's aborted ascension echoed in the Materium, causing a detonation that levelled the entire battlefield where heretics and Imperials yet fought. Through the intervention of Magnus the Red, who channelled the tiniest part of the Astronomican's awesome might into the soul of his son in its final moments, the remaining Word Bearers and Thousand Sons were spared the worst of the onslaught, and quickly dispatched the surviving Chaos Marines before they could rise from their stupor.
In the void, with Ulkair banished, the Judgment of Carrion was eventually drawn back into the Empyrean. Its departure so close to Tartarus, combined with the Warp instability which had been further aggravated by the Blood Raven's tripartite ascension, caused a massive Warp Rift to open above Tartarus, disgorging a host of Neverborn which rained upon the planet like burning stars.
The survivors of the Astartes strike force retreated to Lloovre Marr and joined the remaining Imperial defenders, determined to fight to the end to protect the people who yet clung to life in the capital city. However, to their immense surprise and greater relief, most of the daemons which emerged from the Rift immediately turned upon each other upon reaching the surface. Even Neverborn belonging to the same infernal choir fell upon one another with all the vicious hatred they usually reserved for mortals.
In time, the Thousand Sons would realize this was because of the rage of Gabriel Angelos, which had been taken into the Empyrean upon his transfiguration and acted as a curse upon other daemons. It was only because of Kyras' sacrifice in sundering the Blood Raven's essence while it was already in the Sea of Souls that mortals were unaffected. Small packs of daemons that approached Lloovre Marr still needed to be dealt with, but deprived of their infernal cunning by the Blood Raven's rage, they were comparatively easy prey for the veteran Astartes.
After several months, the pulsating wound in the sky of Tartarus dissipated, its energy exhausted. The warring daemonic hosts faded from existence soon after, though the taint they left seeped deep into the planet's essence, and the Thousand Sons knew that the Inquisition would order the entire world burned to ensure it didn't spread to its population – worse, they couldn't in good conscience argue that such drastic measures would be excessive.
By combining their strength, the sons of Magnus sent a call for aid, knowing all too well that there were far more such calls already in the Aether than there were forces capable of answering them. Instead of reinforcements and military assistance, however, they called for help in evacuating the remaining people of Tartarus and resettling them elsewhere, on a world untainted by the machinations of the Ruinous Powers. Until then, they decided in accord with the Word Bearers, they would keep watch over Tartarus, and ensure that, should its people prove tainted after all, theirs would be the hands to deliver the Emperor's final mercy, through the guns of the Retribution.
Acting Governor Brom wasn't informed of that latter decision, but the Colonel was no fool. Having witnessed the horrors of the Fiendish Legion, he was well aware of how quickly and completely the corruption of Chaos could take root, and was under no illusion as to the Astartes' intent should it seize his remaining people. And, though the knowledge that they may be doomed even though the foe had fled Tartarus was bitter indeed, he drew a certain kind of solace from the fact the denizens of Tartarus wouldn't be used by the Archenemy anymore than they already had been.
He is the Butcher of Cyrene, and he cares for naught but the glory of conquest. His is the strategic vision that led to the slaughter of so many worlds, the dark charisma that brought so many souls under his banner.
His is the will to dominate, to crush and slaughter, to wield armies as lesser souls wield blades. He is the warlord, the tyrant, the conqueror, the image held in the minds of the Fiendish Legion.
He comes into existence aboard the Maccrage's Honour, manifesting in the middle of the Court of Discordia in a shower of blood.
Before him sits the Dark Master of Chaos, who smiles upon the blood-soaked figure. Many are the lords of Chaos who have come to join the Court since the fall of Olympia, but this one, the Dark Master did not foresee, and such pleasant surprises are rare in this age.
The Butcher kneels, and is welcomed by the sound of Roboute Guilliman's laughter.
He is the Jealous Legionary, and he cares for naught but revenge against his Legion. His is the martial prowess of Gabriel, the killing instinct with which he laid low a thousand enemies of the Imperium and ten times that number of its obedient slaves.
His is the urge to prove himself the equal of his psychically-gifted brethren, and then their superior, in the crucible of war, the only trial that matters.
He comes into existence among the ranks of Black Templars, sailing through the stars under the command of Rogal Dorn as the Seventh Legion reforges itself around its returned Primarch. They draw blades at once, and he kills four of them before their leader orders the rest away.
The shadow of the Seventh Primarch falls upon the Legionary, and Rogal Dorn looks upon this newcomer with curiosity.
The Legionary does not kneel. He will never kneel again. He meets the gaze of the Daemon Primarch with his own, undaunted.
He is the Maddened Clarity, and he cares for naught but the death of all things. His is the bitter truth, the hateful realization that Gabriel buried deep, deep within himself – that his rebellion was a mistake, that he broke his vows for nothing but fleeting satisfaction.
Even that realization was poisoned by Khorne over Gabriel's centuries of service, however, slowly forged into a blade of prideless hatred that can be used against the Blood God's most hated rival.
He comes into existence amidst battle, clawing his way up through a pool of blood that once belonged to the Ninth Legion. His first sight is of the Red Angel looking down at him with eyes burning with hatred for the sons of Sanguinius, for all followers of Slaanesh.
The Red Angel reaches down with a blood-red gauntlet, and pulls the Clarity out of the pool, that he may join the Blood Crusade against the sons of Sanguinius, in the Eye of Terror and beyond.
He is the Runesmith, and he is alive.
Around him, the plains of Armageddon stretch out to the horizon, a wasteland of dust and dead earth. In the distance, Orks and Imperials are still fighting as the last embers of the Third War for Armageddon rage on, despite all that has changed across the galaxy since Ghazghkull left the planet for Octarius.
The Runesmith knows all of this at once : thanks to the infernal gifts of Khorne, he can feel every drop of blood being spilled, hear every scream and blood oath sworn on either side. He can even hear the echoes of the first war ever fought between Man and Ork on this world, back in an age few now remember, when this world had another name.
But he doesn't care.
Denied the death he desires and the oblivion he craves once again, he howls his pain at the skies. How much longer, he asks ? How much longer must he serve ? How much longer will he be held by the oath he swore in a moment of grief, not knowing that the Lord of Skulls would hear ?
And in the blood-soaked heavens, the laughter of Khorne answers forever.
AN : Hello, everyone !
This took a lot less time than the previous update, I know. I think keeping story arcs to a single chapter for the foreseeable future was a great idea, since there isn't time for the Muse to get bored with what's currently going on in the RH. And yes, it does mean that the events of this chapter are less galaxy-shaking than what happened in previous arcs, but I do need to tie up the threads I set up when I started writing the Times of Ending ... seven years ago ? Dear Gods, it really has been that long.
As always, thank you to Jaenera Targaryen for beta-reading this chapter and pointing out a couple of weak points that have hopefully been fixed.
I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter, and look forward to your thoughts and comments.
Next up : The Damnos Incident.
Zahariel out.