Space War: Blood of Sanguinius

Chapter one

Thermia v

Six miles south of the Raumath Docks

Thermia was a world of ghosts and half-seen things; a vaporous corpse; shrouded in a winding sheet of fine black powder. Mariah had come here in search of a vision, in thrall to a prediction, but Thermia had seeped in to her mind, clouding her thoughts. What had seemed so clear in the Arx Angelicum now seemed absurd.

On Baal she had dreamed that her, and her alone could save Mephiston. She had seen them fighting together beside a vast, shattered fist- a ruin, surrounded by monsters. She had been sure that the Chief Librarian was on the brink of disaster, the idea seemed ridiculous now, but Mariah could not let it go. She had to know what it meant.

She came to a halt and peered through the billowing ash, staring at movement up ahead. At first she struggled to make out the shapes but then her augmented vision honed in on them, resolving the silhouettes into something recognisable: a group of human soldiers, heading towards her at a slow, exhausted plod. She flicked the safety off her bolt pistol and strode on to meet them. The dust worms had left half of Thermia's settlers insane. The evacuation force had spent almost as much time killing humans as rescuing them. They had escorted thousands to the Raumath docks, readying them for evacuation, but others where consumed by madness they had to be gunned down. As Mariah approached the men she was quite prepared for either eventuality.

It was a group of shock troopers. They staggered to a halt as Mariah loomed out of the soot clouds. The soldiers were clad in black fatigues and thick plates of flack armour. Their crested, iron helmets completely encased their heads, and their faces were hidden behind thermal imaging goggles and heavy, bulbous rebreathers. They looked like thick-jawed attack dogs, the best Thermia had to offer, but Mariah could see they were as burned out as the rest of the planet. These veterans of an unwinnable war had watched their home die and it showed in their posture as they stumbled through the ash and embers. Their heads where hung low on exhaustion-rounded shoulders and their lasguns trailed behind them through the fumes.

At the sight of Mariah they dropped into combat stances and raised their guns.

"Who's that?" growled the leader, trying to disguise his fear with a gruff yell. He looked up at Mariah's power armour, his eyes narrowing behind the filthy lenses of his goggles.

Mariah stared down at him with her icy blue eyes. She scoured the men's souls, searching for the scent of corruption, but found only grief and despair.

"I am Mariah" she replied, when she realised she might not have to kill them.

"I am a Blood Angel."

The soldier glanced at his men, clearly at a loss for words.

"Make for the docks" said Mariah. "The planet is lost."

"Lost?" The trooper could not hide the emotion in his voice. At first Mariah thought is was relief, but then, as the man looked at the ground, Mariah realised it was shame. "Then we really are defeated?"

"Nothing can defeat you" replied Mariah, "Apart from despair. Conquer that and the Emperor might reward you with a more worthy foe."

The soldier's eyes widened and Mariah thought that he might weep. Then her drew back his shoulders and stood upright, giving Mariah a stiff salute. "Forgive my manners, I'm lieutenant Myos of the Vharun Twelfth."

Mariah nodded. "My battle-brothers are surrounding your camp as we speak. Yours is the last manned outpost. We have evacuated everyone else. We all leave tonight."

The men paled. They clearly understood what she meant: Thermia was beyond saving and must be destroyed.

"We were checking the camp perimeter," said Myos, sounding dazed. "We saw gunfire to the east. I guessed it was a relief force, but..." He shook his head. "We were just returning to camp for a debriefing."

Mariah was no longer looking at the man. "The battle for Thermia is over. It is time to leave. I was sent to check for sentries such as yourself. We will not leave good men behind if we can help it."

What did you see? Demanded the daemonic shape, striding towards her through a storm of ghosts.

Mariah staggered. Shocked by the violence of the vision. It filled her mind with more force than ever before. The same crimson eyes. The same murderous rage. The same crumbling stone fist, reaching up from a scorched landscape. The same furious question.

What did you see?

She grasped her head, her cranium pounding. Then the vision faded and the voice was gone.

The men stared at her in confusion.

Mariah lowered her hand from her face and glared at them. She nodded back the way they had come. There was a line across the horizon, just visible through the ash clouds. "Did you travel near the forest?"

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 Mariah. "A fist jutting from the ground. Somewhere near here. Surrounded by burned tree stumps."

Myos nodded. "I know the place, my lady. It's not far. Near the old pit."

Mariah tried to steady her pounding hearts. "Lead me there. I have to see it before I go. The fleet leaves at dawn." she was talking more to herself than the soldier. "tonight is my last chance."

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

They waded on through the ash-drifts, the soldier struggling to keep pace with Mariah's broad, powerful strides. After a while Mariah 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 a flicker of lumens tracing across the ground. Captain Vatrenus and his squad 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. Mariah frowned knowing she should be down there with them. She had done as ordered and found the only strays she could. Now she should go back, but the visions haunted her. They had filled her thoughts since the moment they landed on Thermia, growing more forceful with every day that passed. She must see the place before she returned to Baal.

"What's that?" said Myos, looking along the earthworks toward another group of Guardsmen, about a dozen of them, huddled together for safety, all wearing straps of grenades and armed oilcloth-shrouded lasrifles.

"Sergeant Athor's men," said Myos. "Why are they just sitting there?"

Mariah had seen Mephiston's tactics many times since they landed and she understood what was about to happen. "Bait," she 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. Mariah could not see the Sepolcrali yet, but their hunting call was unmistakable: and 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 Mariah noticed how they would rise up at one end, tasting the air and searching for a scent. The had no face, or any other features for that matter. They where opalescent tubes, ten or eleven feet long, looping and undulating as they snaked across the ash mounds. Mariah was reminded of the sandy shapes that roll through the shallows of oceans – tubular, featureless, inhuman.

Myos 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 Mariah

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. Mariah could see the xenos more clearly now, unfurling themselves across the ash with a gentle, rippling motion. They where grotesque –billowing spirits, glittering in the moonlight. She could understand the tails of supernatural beings that had littered the battle reports. The Sepolcrali looked like ghosts.

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

"Wait!" she 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 wind. Mariah had seen similar scenes several times since the start of the campaign, but she 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, Mariah muttered a prayer, thanking the Emperor for showing her the glory of this divine retribution. Then she 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 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 Mariah. She strode forwards and raised her force sword. 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 Mariah 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 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 in to 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 Mariah, frustrated by the delay. She looked at Myos. "Wait here. We may still have time when this is finished."

"Finished," gasped Myos. "My lady, do you understand what the dust worms do?"

Mariah 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 began to quiver and mutate. Mariah 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 where thundering down the hill after the fleeting 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. Mariah was still hundreds of yards away, but she raised her power sword and summoned a blast of psychic fire from its charmed metal, hurling it into the sepolcrali as she 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 where pounding towards the rows of blockhouses. Some of them where now thirty feet tall and the ground shuddered as they advanced. Mephiston look tiny in comparison, but he waved away the Guardsmen that had approached until he stood alone. He shimmered wit 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.

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

Mariah's thoughts where interrupted by a sound from behind her. She whirled round, sword blazing, and saw Myos stumbling after her through the ash, refusing to sit by as others fought his foes. She muttered a curse, then turned back to 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 monsters 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 giant 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 Mariah knew the vile thing would never make the trees.

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

"What of you brothers, my lady," asked Myos, nodding to the Blood Angels. Mariah shook her head. She knew the she was meant to seek this place alone. Vatrenus and the others were not part of the visions that had driven her here. She had seen the moment so many times. There was Mephiston, the daemonic foe and her – 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, Mariah 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 in to the ground, coated with the same banks of smouldering ash that covered all of Thermia. Reaching up from the centre of crater, rising way above the treetops, was the crumbling stone fist that had haunted her dreams.

What did you see?

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

Momentarily blinded, she stumbled to a halt at the edge of the pit. Visions and prophecy were as familiar to her as anything in the physical world, but none had ever arrived with this violence. It was overwhelming. The vision faded and she hurried down the slope towards the ruins of a small temple. She approached and looked inside. It was a tragic kind of place, with its shattered columns and exposed rafters but, as she peered through the half-open doors, she 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.

Mariah 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.

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

Mariah spoke into her vox. "Captain Vatrenus?" As she 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 short since they landed. Mariah cut the signal and waited to face the sepolcrali alone, waving Myos back into the temple.

Mariah was about to step out and launch her attack when she 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. Mariah readied his pistol. "You will not find a Blood Angel such easy prey," she muttered.

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

What did you see?

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

"Stay inside," she growled to Myos. Then she stepped out to face them.

The creatures ignored Mariah 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 she had dreamed of. Finally he would meet his daemonic accuser. Past and present collided as the events of the vision unfolded before Mariah.

In the visions she thought the ash worms were flanking the figure, but now she they were attacking him – diving and lunging, trying to pierce his flesh. She was drunk on prophecy, blinded by premonition. As in the visions, the figure was little more than a blurred silhouette, but as it came closer, Mariah finally saw the truth. She had seen this moment so many times.

"Mephiston," she muttered, her pulse hammering.

Mephiston launched his attack.

There was a chorus of metallic shrieks as the Chief Librarian exploded into action. He spread his black wings and tore through the aliens, gripping his sword in both hands and swinging it in arcs of psychic energy. The sepolcrali burst into sheets of white flame, scattering fragments of ivory meat across the clearing. Mephiston with the same cold-blooded precision Mariah had seen earlier. As he rose up from the tumult, his face was devoid of emotion.

The sepolcrali turned away from Mariah and she watched the scene in stunned silence. There was a dark beauty to Mephiston's lunges and pirouettes but an endless tide of the shimmering serpents poured up around the fist. For every ten that Mephiston destroyed, another twenty arrived; for every twenty, another thirty. However lethal his technique, it was impossible for him to destroy them all. The sepolcrali showed no sign of fear or even caution. There was something remorseless about their advance. Mephiston may as well have been fighting an avalanche.

Mariah shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. She crossed the steps and began firing at the edges of the pit, picking off the creatures that had yet to reach Mephiston. Her shots barked out, shearing through the sepolcrali and filling the air with even more ash.

Mephiston fought on oblivious, his force sword burning through foe after foe. Time wore on and still they came at him, an endless series of thrusts and lunges as they attempted to break through his sword strikes. Mephiston was incredible to watch but Mariah found herself wondering what would happen if one of the sepolcrali managed to pierce his armour. If the possessed Mephiston's body in the same way they possessed their other victims... The thought did not bear considering. She banished the idea with bolter fire, smiling in satisfaction as she saw the mound of corpses she was building. She may have misunderstood her visions, but she was still glad to be here, helping her lord against these revolting creatures.

Still they came and, gradually, the impossible happened – as ever greater numbers of the creatures tumbled down over Mephiston, he began to tire. His sword blows slowed and, incredibly, he started to miss some of his targets, staggering slightly, wrong-footed by mistimed blows.

The corpse-like rigidity of Mephiston's features was changing. As he failed to defeat the xenos, his face finally showed emotion, twisting into a bitter snarl. Mariah could not tell whether the rage was directed at his foes or his inability to destroy them, but it did not really matter; what mattered was that Mephiston composure had been broken. Mariah had never heard of such a thing.

Finally, the Chief Librarian abandoned his sword and unleashed the naked power of his mind, howling arcane oaths and channelling great gouts of psychic power through his open hands. The columns of light tore through the clearing, incinerating everything they met.

Mariah dived to one as a bolt hurtled towards her. She rolled clear but the blast smashed into the masonry behind her, tearing a hole in the wall of the temple.

She turned onto her back and saw a whirling mass of sepolcrali falling towards her. She loosed off another storm of bold shells, splattering chunks of scorched white meat across the steps, then rose to her feet and looked around for Mephiston. The crowed of sepolcrali had become a mountain, built around the white-hot core of Mephiston's rage. Mariah could barely see him, but his power was evident everywhere. The clearing was networked with incandescent bolts. They where now detonating whole swathes of the xenos as well as levelling the surrounding forest. Many of the blasts where also hitting the temple and the whole structure was starting to teeter and slump.

"Myos," muttered Mariah, recalling the Guardsman. She pounded back up the steps, firing as she went, staggering against the shock waves rippling through the quarry as Mephiston's fury grew even more ferocious. Mariah could hear him crying out in frustration. It was a shocking, inhuman sound.

The temple was drenched in warp light. Large sections of the roof had collapsed, covering the mosaic floor in piles of rubble. She half expected to find Myos dead, but he was hunched in the moonlight, gun raised, surrounded in debris.

Mariah nodded to the door way. "You need to leave." she led him out on to the steps. "We will deal with the xenos."

Myos looked out through the collapsing walls of the building and lowered his gun in shock.

Hundreds of the ash creatures were revolving around Mephiston. They were illuminated so fiercely by his wrath that it seemed as though a sun had formed in the clearing. It blazed brighter until Myos was forced to turn away and even Mariah had to squint against the glare. Then Mariah heard a voice cry out, feral and inhuman.

"Enough!"

The sun shattered.

Mariah and the Guardsman were hit by incredible force and thrown backwards through the ruins. Mariah managed to keep hold of Myos as they where lifted from their feet. She attempted to shield him from the hail of masonry that flew after them. Mariah collided with the wall, smashed through the other side and landed with a grunt, her bolt pistol flying from her grip.

Serpents wound lazily through the stars, crushing the heavens in their dislocated jaws. A griffon reared protectively over a flame, roaring the word "Mephiston". A world burned.

Mariah lay there frozen, as a new series of visions ripped through her head.

Suffocating beneath the rubble. Roaring in endless rage. Dead and undying. A woman approaching through the fumes, calling for help. Her face veiled. Her skin torn away. The veil stained with blood where it had brushed against her ruined face. What did you see?

The visions faded and Mariah saw the pit again. The blinding vortex had gone, replaced by the paler light of the moon. Myos was beside her, dazed and bloody but alive.

A dreadful sound filled the clearing – a bestial roar that sliced through the night, making the eerie quiet that followed seem dreadfully ominous.

Mariah rose and helped Myos to his feet. They both picked their way back through the rubble to the front of the building. Mariah paused, shocked by the sight that greeted them, unsure what was vision and what was fact.

Myos staggered on, shaking his head.

The sepolcrali were dead, all of them were dead. The pit around the stone fist was carpeted in burned flesh. The smell of charred meat hung in the air and the mounds of gore had turned the surrounding forest into a charnel house. But it was not the piles of corpses that Mariah and Myos were staring at; it was Mephiston. Or at least, Mariah thought it was Mephiston. The thing crouched at the edge of the pit wore the same scalloped, crimson armour as the Chief Librarian, but in every other way he had been transformed. Aetheric light was blazing through his armour as he tore through the corpses. His flesh was limned with oily, dark flames.

Mariah hesitated, confused, but Myos staggered on, climbing down the steps. "You destroyed them," he said, reaching out towards Mephiston. "So many of them."

Mephiston looked up. His face was a blood-infused flame and his eyes flashed a deep carmine. His teeth gleamed, cruel and white, as he launched himself at Myos.

Myos howled as Mephiston Crashed into him.

Mephiston grabbed him by the throat and lifted him easily up over his head, roaring incoherently. Power spat from his armour as he prepared to throw Myos against the ruins.

"Wait!" cried Mariah.

The words hit Mephiston like a slap, he reeled back down the steps, hurling Myos to the ground.

Myos landed heavily and Mariah followed Mephiston, unsure what to do.

"are you wounded, Chief Librarian?"

Mephiston stared back, a cornered beast, hunched and dangerous, ready to pounce. "Mariah," he said, his feral voice struggling to form the word. Then he said it again with more confidence.

"Mariah." Suddenly, he was changing. He rose from his crouch and drew back his shoulders. The snarl dropped from his face and the dark fire faded from his skin. He looked around at the carnage he had wrought. "What...?" he began, but his words petered out and he looked at Mariah in confusion. He retrieved Vitarus from the blood-soaked turf and stared at it. Every inch of the force sword was stained with blood.

"My lord-" Mariah began, but she paused as Mephiston saw Lieutenant Myos, broken and silent, sprawled across the steps. Mephiston looked from Myos to Mariah, his eyes half-lidded. "Chief Librarian," Mariah said, stepping to his side. "You destroyed so many of them." she looked around the rolling hills of corpses.

"Whatever happens now, the sepolcrali will always recall the day they faced the Blood Angels."

Mephiston wiped some blood from his face, revealing the waxen skin beneath. His eyes were still clouded as he turned to face Mariah.

A ghost of savagery contorted his voice. "What did you see?"

Mariah almost cried out as she heard the words that had been so long coming. This was the question that had been echoing round her head for months.

As Mephiston glared at her, animal hunger still smouldering in his eyes, Mariah realised that she could see a shadow of the Chief Librarian's mind. The bond she had felt during the battle was growing – becoming a permanent link between them. They were joining somehow. And as she peered into her lord's mind, Mariah saw quite clearly that Mephiston meant to kill her.

"What did you see?" repeated Mephiston stepping closer.

"I saw you destroy our enemy. I saw you strike them down with-"

"No," Mephiston interrupted, his voice quiet and dangerous as he locked his hand around Mariah's arm, still gripping Vitarus in the other. "You saw more than that. What did you see in my mind, Mariah?"

Mariah faltered. "I have seen strange visions," she admitted, she tried to look Mephiston directly in the eye. "I did not understand them."

Mephiston tightened his grip and Mariah whispered a prayer. Over on the steps, Myos groaned. The sound broke something in Mephiston's eyes. He loosed his grip on Mariah and backed away. When he looked up again, all traces of the monster had vanished; he was back to the Lord of the Librarius once more, phlegmatic and detached.

Mariah's fears suddenly felt ridiculous. How she have imagined Mephiston would harm one of his own servants?

"See to him," said Mephiston, nodding at Myos. "I must find Captain Vatrenus and clear the valley of revenants, or this evacuation will become even more of a mess." He took a deep breath, wiped more blood from his face and marched towards the edge of the clearing. Before he left, he paused and looked back.

"I have work to do in the Cronian Sector but I will summon you when I return to Baal. Do not speak of this to anyone."

"My lord," said Mariah, "I would not know what to say."

Mephiston did not seem to hear her. "None of this is how it appears." His voice was a thick jumble of accents and Mariah could barely make out the words. "And it would not do to cast doubt on me, to cast doubt on ideas that carry such currency, ideas that have given our bloodline such hope."

"of course, my lord" Mariah began, but Mephiston had already vanished into the trees.

Mariah turned back to Myos, eager to bind his wounds and hurry him back to the camp. He met a fixed, blank stare.

Myos was dead.