Chapter Text
Sergeant Rafen stood over Fabius Bile, and pointed his bolter at him. The chaos space marine apothecary was bleeding badly as he sprawled on the laboratory floor of the enemy ship. “Tell me where you put the vial,” demanded Rafen.
Bile laughed at him, which turned into a gasping cough.
“Where?” demanded Rafen. He nodded to Ceris. “Keep looking,” he said.
“You won’t find it,” said Bile. “It’s not here.”
“Then where is it?” said Rafen. “If we don’t fix you, you’ll bleed out. You’d better answer the question.” His orders were to kill Bile as well as retrieve the relic, but Bile probably didn’t know that for certain.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” said Bile.
Rafen leaned down. “Listen, you -”
Bile smiled, and pressed something hidden in his hand.
Which is when everything exploded. When Rafen sat up, his ears ringing, the laboratory was a mess and Bile was very, very dead.
0000
Several hours later, there was still no sign of the vial of Sanguinius’ blood. Most of that time was spent getting into the computer systems, they finally determined that twelve drop pods had been sent down to the surface of Valhalla an hour or so before they had boarded Bile’s ship. Most likely, one of them had contained the vial. Whether it still did, and where the vial was now, was another question entirely.
Time to head to the surface, and to rope the local authorities into helping in the search.
0000
When Ciaphas Cain heard that there was a Blood Angels frigate in-system looking for some sort of missing relic, he had a feeling that his Sanguinala time off was about to go sideways. Whenever the Emperor’s Angels showed up, something important and dangerous was usually afoot. These ones seemed stressed, too... Cain was supposed to be spending tomorrow with Amberley. But if he didn’t want to get dragged into space marine business, it might be a good idea to be busy with something else in case they came looking for volunteers.
Not long after, a local arbites chief by the name of Zimmer came by. “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” she said, “but one of the 597th’s soldiers is dead.”
“What happened? And who?” asked Cain, standing up. That was his old unit. Sanguinala eve was normally quiet and solemn, not the sort of event that resulted in deaths related to drinking too much with attendent fights and traffic accidents. That was more common tomorrow.
“A guardsman Hans Plotnikov,” she said. “As to what happened, someone has kidnapped his family, and it looks like he was trying to stop them. Possibly a chaos cult, given that Plotnikov drew the symbol of khorne in his own blood as he lay dying, and I assume that our brave soldiers are not khornate cultists.”
“I’d certainly hope not,” said Cain, “and given what I know of Plotnikov it seems vanishingly unlikely. Which means that we have a chaos cult in Arsk.” And if khornate cultists were involved, this just shot straight up the priority list. You could never tell what those bloody-handed fools would do, apart from it being likely to kill a lot of people. So much for his time off, though at least it meant no Space Marine Specials. “I will help you, avenge Plotnikov and see if we can save his family.”
The cultists had not covered their tracks well enough. Given they were khornate cultists, not Tzeentch, that wasn’t totally surprising. Bloodstains on the floor... seriously? At least it made the tracker dog’s job easier.
It was about two am when they chased the cult down in a rundown building on the edges of the city near the ice wall. The little group crept quietly up the fire stairs, not wanting to alert the cultists that they had been spotted. It was quiet. Too quiet. About halfway up, Cain could hear chanting. Had they already started their ceremony? The chances of rescuing any of their victims were dropping by the second, and the chance of disaster was rising.
Everyone was looking at him expectantly. Inwardly cursing his reputation, Cain drew a deep breath, his laspistol and his chainsword, and charged up the stairs.
Ahead of them, the chanting grew to a crescendo and died away. Silence fell save for their own running feet. Then the building shook, and they stumbled, dodging rubble falling down the stairs around them.
A light now shone where the wall had fallen away. There was a long wailing scream, shattering glass, and the thud of human bodies hitting solid objects. Please tell me they haven’t succeeded in calling up a demon that just turned on them... WHY were cultists always such throne-deserted idiots?
Cain charged up the stairs, the others close behind him, and threw open the door just as quiet descended.
To see a scene of utter chaos. The cultists were scattered like ninepins around the edges of the room, some alive and picking themselves up, while others were still down. The missing civilians were dead as human sacrifices, assorted chaos symbology was written in human blood everywhere, and a panicked looking sorcerer in fancy robes was sitting on the floor staring blankly out the window at a huge pale form flying away into the dark.
“Jurgen, get the demon.” Cain pointed his laspistol at the sorcerer. “All of you are under arrest in the name of the Emperor.”
Two of the khornate cultists charged him with sacrificial knives. Cain sidestepped the first and cut him down with his chainsword. One of the arbites shot the other.
The sorcerer hid her head in her hands, clearly regretting her life choices.
Jurgen ran to the window, and took a couple of shots at the fleeing pale form.
“Think you got it?” asked Cain.
“Didn’t do much if I did, sir,” said Jurgen. “Think it dived and swerved into an alley.” Jurgen was an excellent shot... what kind of monster had those IDIOT cultists summoned this time?
OOOO
Sanguinius woke slowly to the smell of fresh human-standard blood from three different individuals, minor pain in his wings and the feeling of metal around his wrists and ankles. He opened his eyes, blinking, to see a human woman with bloodstained hands leaning over him. Her eyes widened and she smiled viciously before saying something in a language he didn’t recognize.
Beyond her the walls of the room were decorated in blood in a script he couldn’t read, but he recognized the eight-pointed star and the symbols of Tzeentch and Khorne. And memory of Horus and the Vengeful Spirit came flooding back.
Sanguinius jumped to his feet, or tried to, stopped halfway by the chains.
The sorcerer shrieked and stumbled backwards.
He had to get out of here before Horus came back! The Emperor was still in play: they still had a chance, even if Sanguinius had failed against Horus. Sanguinius threw his full weight and strength against the chains binding him, and twisted.
The chains held, but the wall where they attached did not. The sorcerer’s helpers tried to grab him by his wings, but Sanguinius spread them with a snap until they were stopped by the walls, throwing the cultists away and to the ground. One of them flew through the window with a crash, and a long wailing scream as he vanished into the darkness below. An icy gust of air blew in through the broken window.
The sorcerer backed away, eyes wide with terror.
Behind them, coming up the stairs, Sanguinius could here others running, probably to bind him again and drag him back to Horus and his demonic allies. No more. Sanguinius brushed past the panicking sorcerer, knocking her down with a wing. He reached the window. One kick to the wall below it, two, and the gap was large enough. He heard the door slam open and people yelling something about “demon” and “Emperor” as he dove into the frozen dark.
He spread his wings, and realized something was wrong. He wasn’t getting enough lift despite often fighting airbourne battles in armor and the fact he wasn’t wearing armor now – or anything else for that matter. And his primaries hurt. They must have pinioned him. A moment of raw terror struck him as he looked towards the ground below. The sound of shots came from behind and above.
Sanguinius tilted, dove, and swerved into a nearby alley, spreading his wings wide and flapping frantically to pull out of the dive and slow himself. Up ahead was a blur of pale shapes in the dark, and he could not stop... He slammed into the drying laundry, laundry lines snapping and tangling round him and all their clothing with them.
He hit the ground hard in a giant mess of frozen-stiff cloth and snapped clotheslines, the wind knocked out of him. Standing up, he removed a pair of trousers and a sock from his head, and tried to get his bearings. Wherever this was, it did not look like the Vengeful Spirit.
Above him, people had begun yelling something in a language he doesn’t know. He caught the word ‘angel’ but not much else apart from a general feeling of alarm and shock. He tried to move and tripped over the bedsheet dangling from one wing. Holding his wings higher to avoid more tangles, he darted out of the open street and under an overhang, his chains dragging broken laundry lines and random clothing items after him.
He looked at the bedsheet, and down at himself. The sheet wouldn’t do much for warmth, but it was better than nothing. He knotted it into a wrap skirt, then ripped laundry lines and human size clothing items away from the chains.
He looked up to see several civilians watching him. He was still much too close to where his enemies had held him. Sanguinius ran past them into the open, then climbed the building. The trailing chains kept getting caught on things. Halfway up, he stopped to wrap them around his limbs as best he could. Then he went back to climbing. With more people watching from the ground and all the nearby buildings forming a growing crowd of gawkers.
He needed to get out of there now. Sanguinius took off in a clumsy flight to a balcony on the next apartment building.