C. Goto - Dawn of War

With a sudden gasp, Gabriel flicked open his eyes and stared directly ahead. His eyes were wide and burning, as though gazing on some distant horror. Then it was over and he seemed to return to himself; turning his head to face Isador he smiled faintly.

“Isador, it is good to see you. We have much to discuss,” he said, rising to his feet and gesturing for the Marines to join him.

“Are you alright, Gabriel?” asked his old friend, momentarily looking around the chamber for the source of the whispers, which seemed to persist even after Gabriel’s meditations ended.

“Yes, Isador. I’m fine. The good inquisitor gave me much food for thought, that is all,” replied Gabriel, still smiling weakly.

“Captain,” interjected Corallis. “The inquisitor had no right to speak to you in such a manner. And he has no reason to doubt you.” Corallis and Isador had already spoken to Brom, and they had a good idea what Toth would have said to Gabriel.

“On the contrary, sergeant,” answered Gabriel frankly. “The inquisitor has every right to speak in whatever manner he chooses. That is his prerogative. And he has his reasons to doubt me. He is wrong, but he has his reasons, and I cannot blame him for that. We must each serve the Emperor in our own ways, Corallis.”

“So, are we going to leave?” asked the sergeant hesitantly.

“Do you trust that the storm will deal with our enemies for us?” asked Isador, as though anticipating that Gabriel would have succumbed to Toth’s pressure.

“No, my brothers, we are not going to leave. We will not use this storm as an excuse to avoid our enemies or our responsibilities. The forces of Chaos are here for a reason, and I suspect that this fortuitous storm has some part to play in their plans. Coincidence is not the ally of fortune, only knowledge can overcome ignorance. We must stay and discover the truth.”

Isador and Corallis nodded and then bowed slightly. “We are with you, brother-captain. As always,” said Corallis, his voice full of relief.

“Sergeant Corallis, organise the remaining scouts into two squads and dispatch them to sweep the areas flanking the valley. We need to see why the Alpha Legion chose this spot to engage the Blood Ravens, if indeed it is they who are here on Tartarus.”

Corallis nodded and then strode off down the ramp to organise the scouts, leaving Isador and Gabriel together in the belly of the Thunderhawk, with Prathios still silently observing his younger battle-brothers.

“What news from the librarium, Isador?” asked Gabriel, recalling the sight of the curator who had accompanied Mordecai.

“Interesting news,” replied Isador, checking back over his shoulder to make sure that they were not being overheard. “It seems that there are records of Imperial settlements on Tartarus dating from before the thirty-eighth millennia. However, the records themselves have been expunged from the Chapter archives. So, whilst there are references to them, the references lead nowhere-simply to empty shelf space.”

“I assume that your curators have pursued these missing files,” said Gabriel, encouraging Isador to continue.

“Of course, Gabriel,” replied Isador. “But their inquiries have been met with silence and the seals of the Inquisition. It seems that there is more to the history of Tartarus than we are supposed to know, captain.”

Gabriel nodded, unsurprised. “I agree, Isador. And what about this storm? Do the records say anything about a warp storm?”

“There are a few references to various legends about a warp storm that is supposed to visit the planet every couple of thousand years. Folk stories, Gabriel, nothing more. No mention is made of any verification,” said Isador hesitantly.

“Is there something else, Isador?” asked Gabriel, taking note of his friend’s tone.

“I’m not sure. However, when we tried to discover the details of the legends, we discovered that they had also gone missing from the archives. It does seem as though somebody has tried to eliminate all accounts of the pre-Imperial past on Tartarus-but this person did not do a very good job of covering his tracks,” conceded Isador.

“They did not anticipate an investigation by a Blood Ravens Librarian, clearly,” said Gabriel affectionately. “Have you spoken to Brom about this? He mentioned something about a legend when Toth started to talk about the warp storm. Perhaps the colonel will be of use to us after all, Isador.”

“I did see him,” said Isador, shaking his head slowly. “He came storming out of his meeting with you in an evil mood. I left him alone, and he went off with some of his men.”

“We need to find him. They may be only folk stories, Isador, but even fairy stories can reveal something of the truth, if you know how to read them. And I am confident in your skills in this regard, my friend,” said Gabriel with a faint smile. “If we can find out anything at all, it may give us the advantage we need. Make sure that your inquiries are discrete, Isador. It would not do for the honourable inquisitor to think that we did not trust him.”

The broken body of a mon-keigh soldier lay across the altar, and Farseer Macha inspected it with a mixture of disgust and despair. The human’s blood was still warm, dripping into little, vanishing pools on the earth. She shook her head in disbelief and prodded her finger into the cauterised hole in the man’s temple. The wound was clean and crisp, as though the las-shot had carefully parted each molecule of tissue as it had passed through. With a wave of relief, Macha realised that the mon-keigh had been killed before the sacrifice had been completed. Apparently, the pathetic humans couldn’t concentrate long enough to conduct a proper sacrifice. She praised Khaine for the stupidity of the mon-keigh-blood for the Blood God, indeed.

However, the mon-keigh’s blood was not pure. As Macha withdrew her finger from the man’s head, she noticed that something was growing up through its skull from the underside, as though rooted in the stone of the altar itself. She clasped the human’s hair in her hand and quickly tore its head away from its shoulders, pulling the head into the air. A rainbow of blood swept out of the body, dappling droplets into the already sodden soil. Sure enough, writhing in ungodly ecstasies under the man’s body was a bunch of snaking capillaries, growing directly out of the stone, drinking the man dry. They were discoloured and brown, hardly matching the man’s blood at all. Beneath them, as though trapped deep within the material of the altar itself, Macha could see the suggestion of a face, contorted in agony. It was just the ghost of a once human face-an immaterial representation trapped in the material realm, taunted and tortured by the gyrating sea of souls that made up the fabric of the altar.

“Flaetriu? Was this the first sacrifice that the humans made?” asked Macha, standing back from the altar in revulsion.

“We saw no others, farseer,” answered Flaetriu.

Casting her eyes around the crater, Macha realised that the little group of mon-keigh encountered by her rangers could not possibly have excavated the site. It would have taken them days, especially if their attention spans were really as short as suggested by the botched sacrifice.

“Something else has been here, Flaetriu. Something more powerful than the mon-keigh that you saw off.” She had returned to the altar and was running her delicate fingers through the wriggling capillaries, almost caressing them. “Something got here before the humans and before us.”

“The orks?” offered Flaetriu half-heartedly, casting his hand up towards the rim of the crater where a mob of the greenskins had been slaughtered by the eldar, as both had come to investigate the pit.