Chapter Text
Dante returned to his tent, his golden armor covered in dried blood and mud, dripping as he walked to the middle. His serfs quickly rushed to his side as they began cleaning his wargear of the muck.
As they worked, Colma, his equerry, approached him. Young, like many of the blood thralls post-Devastation, Colma was the sixty eighth thrall to serve as his aide, having replaced his previous equerry, Arafeo, following his death. Dante frowned as he looked at Colma. He would not be the last to serve him. Like all his servants, they would wither and die while he continued on.
Presented a data-slate, Dante took it in his hands and absorbed the data given to him. It appeared the Angels Numinous and Red Seraphs had secured Ibtos alongside the neighboring two star systems to its east. While the Charnel Guard succeeded in routing traitor elements from Protos and Derza VIII.
Satisfied, he handed the data-slate back to Colma. “What of our casualties?” he asked Colma.
The thrall pursed his lips as he took the data-slate back. “Estimates place our losses at around five thousand, my lord,” he said with some hesitance. “Twelve being Astartes, the rest men and women of the army.”
Dante let out a long, tired sigh. This war was taking its toll on them all. Since the disaster at Malakbael, the Red Scar’s borders had become a battleground as he and the rest of his chapter fought off a near endless tide of reavers and madmen. Despite the reinforcement given to him by Baal, the corrupted elements of Fleet Quartus were proving more difficult to rout out than any of them had first expected. Even with the Triarchy by his side, five entire Imperial Army regiments for support, and a third of House Hawkshroud's knights heeding his call to arms, it still was not nearly enough to eradicate the threat.
He had slept little since the start of the crisis. Colma had chided him many times to rest, but he had refused. He could not. Not yet, at least.
He was Lord Regent and Warden of Imperium Nihilus. Worlds lived and died by the actions he and his men took. If he were to rest now, blood knew how many lives would perish.
Carefully he sat down and felt his every bone creak with age, as his muscles ached with pain. His serfs paused in their cleaning as they saw their lord’s discomfort, but began again with the rituals of sterilization once satisfied their master was in no danger. Fatigue was taking a heavy toll on his old body, not helped by the grievous wounds he had suffered near the end of the Devastation. His chest burned with phantom pain as he remembered. Eight years since he had fought the Swarmlord, and still he carried the scars of that duel.
His body and spirit were at their limits.
He was old.
Frail.
He had little time left in this world. A few traces of poison from the Swarmlord’s bio-blades still coursed through his blood. Despite Corbulo’s best efforts to cleanse the poison, it still flowed through his veins. He had at best a few years left before his body finally gave out—as the Sanguinary Priest had informed him. It would be an inglorious end for a man such as he. After so many centuries of living. After the sacrifices he had made for the Imperium. The legend of Luis Dante would end not with a glorious conclusion on the battlefield but with an agonizing whimper on a surgical table. Not even the limbo of entombment within a Dreadnaught Sarcophagus would save him from death’s hand. Unlike so many of his brothers, his duty would end in his death.
His only hope of survival was to cross the Rubicon Primaris. But even with many years of refining the surgery to decrease the risk of death, his advanced age proved once more to be an obstacle. He no longer had the vigor of his younger brethren. To undergo the Rubicon now was to gamble with his life. The risk was far too great. Without him, all that he had built here in Imperium Nihilus would fall once more into ruin.
Though knowing his death was inevitable, a part of him refused to believe it. Not because he was afraid of death, but because it was not his time. Yet. If the Scrolls of Sanguinius were to be believed, he still had many centuries more before the peace he desired would allow him some rest.
Colma then tugged at his hand. “Lord, a scholiast wishes to see you,” he said. “Shall I let him in?”
Dante waved a hand, and Colma bowed before walking towards the entrance and opening the tent for their guest. Dressed in blue—as were all servants of the Librarium—the mute blood thrall bowed to him and made the aquila over his chest. He waved a hand, and the scholiast got up from his knees before pulling a data-slate from his robes and handing it to Dante. He took the device in his hands and gave the thrall permission to leave. Making the aquila over his chest once more, the thrall took their leave. He analyzed the contents of the data-slate and found it to be a report from Epistolary Antonus.
A few months after the Murder Curse had been made known to them, Inquisitor Coteaz of the Ordo Malleus had sent a data-packet to him concerning a new scheme by the Archenemy. Known as ‘Arks of Omen’, the retrofitted Space Hulks and the ‘Balefleets’ that followed in their wake had brought anarchy to Imperium Nihilus. Their purpose still remained unknown, but the current hypothesis Mephiston had given him last time he and the Chief Librarian had discussed the matter was that they were hunting something.
When word reached him that one of these Arks had attacked the Saganas Belt, a region of imperial space rich with agri-worlds, he had led his fleet to aid in the region’s defense. But when Dante and his fleet reached the Belt, they found the Balefleet to be a graveyard of floating wrecks, while the Ark of Omen, which led them, Night Terror, sat derelict and broken. As they boarded the Ark of Omen, he and his men had found its occupants dead, be they cultist or traitor Astartes. When their Sanguinary Priests analyzed the wounds, they found many of the deaths to be the work of bolters and blades. The only other clue to the culprit being a few wilted plants. Days after searching the graveyard of heretics, Dante had called off the search. Whoever attacked the heretics had long since vanished. Ordering the plant matter to be studied as they departed, he believed the matter was done. While what happened to Night Terror was strange, it was not out of the ordinary. The galaxy was large and filled with mysteries left unanswered. His long life had shown him that. The destruction of Night Terror was just one more.
But then the biologis returned with their report.
Whatever killed the heretics on the Night Terror was psychic in nature. A worrisome development. Immediately following this revelation, the investigation had been given over to Mephiston and his coven of witches to deal with. Since then, the Librarium had dedicated many of its resources to finding the perpetrator of Night Terror’s destruction.
But now it appeared they had a new lead, Dante mused as he opened the Librarian’s report.
COLLATION REPORT 34U/BETA
AUTH: Epistolary Antonus
REPORT COMMENCE>>>
Lord Dante, I present my summation of the oracular and investigatory effort undertaken at your command by the Librarius. I commend the battle-brothers who aided us in this quest and honour those who made the ultimate sacrifice in its name. Autologs, prophetic analysis supporting, combat accounts et al can be found in the appended data files.
As you know, lord we first detected our target’s unique psychic spoor during the boarding of the Ark of Omen: Night Terror. There were found only the hacked and blasted bodies of the Ark’s heretic masters and crew, as well as traces of anomalous and withered plant life. It was from prognostication and empyro-energetic analysis of these samples that we picked up a trail to be followed.
Even as the Arks of Omen have raided across the galaxy, so our strike forces have pursued that trail as it has leapt between the stars. It has tested our Librarius to its limits to track these manifestations, especially amidst the challenges of Imperium Nihilus. It seems probable we have identified only a handful of its full appearances. Yet this has been enough.
In each case the signature matches with the coming of a singular being to whom many names have been given. On Cateric they named it the ‘Unforgiving Knight’; in the Chalneth Expanse they named it ‘Tyranny’s End’; ‘Beastslayer on Maidos V’; ‘The Cowled Giant’ on Lucitane Beta; on the shattered road the pilgrims even dared name it the ‘Emperor Incarnate’.
Many eye-witnesses stray into lurid mythologizing. Certain similarities persist, however. He is a warrior, larger than any battle-brother, but clad in ornate power armor. He goes hooded and cloaked. He bears a mighty sword and a glowing golden shield. He steps from the shadowed roads of a dark forest that is not truly there. His hatred of Chaos and all its forms is absolute, his slaying of monsters and tyrants swift and thorough. Sometimes he fights alone. Sometimes accompanied by black-armoured Adeptus Astartes whose nature remains mysterious, other times he is seen fighting with a mortal witch girl with silver eyes.
What pict- and vid-capture we have recovered corroborates these accounts–it is all included in the data-files, and is in places truly remarkable. Along with empyric divining, analytic augury, and macro-spectral sampling, it has helped us in our pursuit to close the gap. I will not speculate on the nature of this being my lord, for you are as able as I to draw the obvious, startling conclusion as to his possible nature identity. Rather in data file 001 /Primus/H67/P, I simply provide the auto-prophetic coordinates where the Librarius believe this being can be intercepted.
Attached to this report is subfile W4D87/V/R. Therein is a full account of Librarian Venanto Rhalion and his valiant–if costly, actions aboard the Herald of Misery. It is through the selfless sacrifice of many battle-brothers’ lives that we have at last been able to triangulate the astrogational coordinates. My lord, we know at least where these ‘Key-Fragments’ are being sent. It is a system on the very border of the warp-rift known as the Somnium Stars. As soon as our pursuit is concluded, I urge that we make all haste to investigate this locale with whatever additional support can be redirected. My instincts whisper that the two matters are intertwined, and that great dooms may turn upon their resolution. May the primarch guide our steps in these coming days.
Dante tapped on the attached files given to him by the Librarian. When the file opened, he froze upon seeing its contents.
Impossible, he thought, at the being in the captured image. Is this a trick of the Archenemy? But it was no mistake nor error. He knew it deep down. Another of the Emperor’s sons had returned! To think it would happen so soon after the revival of Lord Guilliman! Truly, these were miraculous times! For the briefest of moments, Dante felt younger than he had in centuries.
Denerair had sent out a distress call to Baal some time ago. Isolated by the opening of the Great Rift and assailed by the foul greenskins, he had been forced, with a heavy heart, to ignore their distress call. However, with the presence of a primarch there, Dante was confident Denerair alongside the other worlds of the Cyclops Cluster were in safe hands from the vile orks.
Despite his desire to take the full might of his host to bear and assist the primarch, he knew too well how spread thin their forces already were. The Murder-Curse was scantily being held at bay. With each vessel the traitors destroyed, it was one less ship Dante could use in his reconquest of Imperium Nihilus. Already their plans had been set back by a decade thanks to the catastrophe at Malakbael.
There were then these Arks of Omen. Whatever the Archenemy was planning, it did not bode well for the greater galaxy. Epistolary Antonus was right. A great doom was upon them, and it was all happening in the Somnium Stars. It had to be stopped at once.
Throne was his burden, a heavy one. A choice had to be made. A choice that would see millions die. By the Great Angel was he tired of making such choices. Too many innocent lives had already been sacrificed in his long life. Yet he could not leave a returned son of the Emperor alone in Imperium Nihilus.
“Prepare our forces for a final attack on the traitors on this world,” he told Colma. “And send word to Shipmistress Kurata to prepare the Baal’s Fury for our immediate departure and set a course for Denerair. Once we have cleared this planet of its taint, we are to leave at once.”
“Lord?” said Colma. “Is this wise? The enemy has dug themselves in. An attack now will surely mean heavy casualties, both Astartes and mortal. Would it not be wise to have a dialogue with the lexmechanics before we rush towards this action?”
“We do not have the time, my friend,” he told the thrall with some sadness. “If what Epistolary Antonus’ report states is true, we cannot afford to let this opportunity slip from our grasp.”
Colma frowned before bowing. “By your will I obey, my lord,” he said. “I shall inform Shipmistress Kurata and the captains of your decision.”
Dante nodded as Colma left his tent. When the thrall left, he pressed his fingers to the brow of his helmet and sighed. Many would die this day because of his decision, but hopefully many more would live if it proved to be fruitful. He wondered next what the primarch’s return would mean. The chapter archives spoke of the Great Angel and the Knight of Caliban being comrades, especially during the dark days of the Heresy. Hopefully, the Lion shared these sentiments with his brother’s sons. By the blood, sometimes Dante wished he had never been appointed Lord Regent by the Avenging Son. As heretical as that was to think. With each passing day, his mission of securing Imperium Nihilus grew more and more impossible.
Nevertheless, Dante hoped, however his meeting with the Lord of the First went, it would end well on good terms and potentially lessen the burden he had on his shoulders. But what concerned him were these Arks of Omen. Something malice was brewing in the Somnium Stars; he did not know what, but it could not mean anything good for the galaxy.
“Sanguinius, please give us strength,” he whispered.