C. Goto - Dawn of War

“No, ranger, not orks. Orks care little for such things, and they have not the wit for an archaeological dig. This is the work of the minions of Chaos. I sense the hand of the Alpha Legion in this, Flaetriu, and that is most troubling. It seems that the Chaos Marines are not here merely to war against the other humans.” She paused for a moment, letting the tiny tendrils tickle around her fingertips. “But their hand is dark and the future is confused. I cannot see their intentions. We must move quickly.”

“Farseer!” The call came from Kreusaur, standing dramatically on the lip of the crater, shuriken catapult held vertically into the sky. “The mon-keigh, they are coming. Do you wish us to execute them?”

No, Kreusaur, replied Macha, her voiceless words slipping directly into the ranger’s mind. The time for conflict with the red soldiers will come. But this is not the time, and this is certainly not the place. Distract them, ranger. We must press on before the other humans do something that we will all regret.

The thin breath of smoke eased its way into the air in front of Brom, its calm tranquillity belying the turmoil in his head. He stuffed the little roll back in his mouth, his hands trembling with agitation, and sucked a series of shallow draws. The smoke caught in his tense throat, making him cough and splutter, and he threw the little stick down into the grass and ground it into the mud with his boot.

The smoke seemed to hang in the air in front of him for a long time, keeping its coherence in the form of a small cloud. As he breathed, the cloud gently washed away from his face, only to be drawn back again when he inhaled. In annoyance, Brom lashed out with his hand, swiping his glove straight through the smoke, muttering to himself about the audacity of the inquisitor and the arrogance of the Space Marine. One day they would need his help, and then they’d see what their lack of respect had cost them.

Down on the valley floor, Brom could still see the carnage that the battle had wrought. He was sitting on a small rock promontory that stuck clear out of the tree-line about halfway up the valley wall, and even from there he could see the piles of ork corpses and the streaks of blood that ran across the river basin. The green, verdant land of Tartarus was slowly being transformed into a blood-soaked offering to the glory of the Emperor-and the Tartarans were celebrating his majesty with their own blood, mixing it with that of these filthy xenos.

How much blood had been spilt today? Enough to make the Lloovre River run red. For a moment he wondered whether the people in the capital city would see the red in the water before they raised it to their lips to drink. But the planet was soaked with blood in any case-it wasn’t as though the people hadn’t already consumed their fair share of produce from the tainted soil, thought Brom sourly, tugging out another smoke.

“People are so hypocritical when it comes to blood,” he hissed to himself, without really thinking.

The little cloud of smoke in front of his face had still not dissipated, and it seemed to be curdling into vague eddies as he tried to wave it away. It slipped and flowed around his hands, presenting no obstacle against which he could strike, almost enwrapping his limb with its weightless form. For an instant, Brom thought that he could see a face crystallise in the smoke, but it was just a fleeting moment and then it was gone.

A gentle breath of wind whipped through the valley and dispersed the smoke in a reverie of whispers, making Brom check quickly from side to side to ensure that he was alone. He was not.

“Colonel Brom. There is something that I would like to ask you.”

“Librarian Akios,” said Brom, standing awkwardly to his feet and turning to greet the Blood Raven. “How may I be of service?”

“Captain Angelos has asked me to question you about the local legends concerning the warp storm,” began Isador, realising his own clumsiness as soon as he spoke. He did his best to recover. “And I would be most interested to hear what you have to say on the matter, colonel.”

“There is not much to tell, Librarian. Mostly just folk stories, I’m sure. Nothing that would interest the Adeptus Astartes or the good Captain Angelos. Certainly, Inquisitor Toth showed no interest in what I had to say,” said Brom, almost poisonously.

Isador watched Brom closely as he spoke and noticed the particular way in which the colonel emphasised the inquisitor’s name. He paused momentarily, unsure about the meaning of Brom’s tone. Just then, Sergeant Corallis’ voice hissed into the vox unit in Isador’s amour.

“Librarian Akios, the scouts are back from their sweep, and Captain Angelos requests your company,” said the sergeant simply.

“I will be right there,” replied Isador, turning away from Brom immediately.

“Where is Brom?” asked Gabriel curtly, as Isador came up the ramp of the Thunderhawk. “This concerns him also.”

“He is smoking, captain, out in the forest,” answered Isador.

“I would have thought that he would have better things to do,” replied Gabriel. “His men need discipline and courage drilling into them, Isador. After the fiasco on the walls of Magna Bonum, there is worse to tell.”

“What has happened?”

“The scouts returned with news of an excavated crater about ten kilometres from here,” began Corallis. “They were ambushed by a group of eldar rangers as they closed on its location, but successfully repelled the xenos. Strewn around the rim of the crater they found the bodies of a mob of orks-evidently they had also been interested in the crater for some reason-”

“-and evidently the eldar did not want them to see it, for some reason,” interjected Gabriel.

“Indeed. The scouts proceeded down into the crater, where they found a disturbing artefact. Some kind of altar, marked all over in runes that they could not decipher. They hastened to bring this news back to us, so that Librarian Akios might have the chance to see the writing,” finished Corallis, turning to Isador.

“The involvement of the eldar on Tartarus is certainly unexpected. It bespeaks something terrible-the eldar do not concern themselves in the affairs of others without a reason, even if their reasons are often incomprehensible to us,” said Isador, distracted by the casual mention of the ancient, alien race. Then he realised why the eldar had been glossed over in the story-there was something more pressing between the lines. “What does this have to do with Brom?” asked Isador quickly.

“Stretched over the altar, gashed and torn with sacrificial markings, was one of Brom’s Guardsmen, Isador,” explained Gabriel.

“One of Brom’s men was sacrificed? We should inform him, of course,” said Isador, still not quite understanding what all the fuss was about.

“There’s something else,” continued Gabriel. “The man was executed by a single shot to the head. A shot from an Imperial Guard officer’s laspistol.” Gabriel could see the Librarian’s mind racing with the significance of these facts. “He was sacrificed and executed by other Tartarans, Isador.”

C.S. Goto (ebook by Undead)

01 – Dawn of War

Standing on the edge of the crater, Gabriel stared down at the altar, a spread of Blood Ravens lining the rim of the pit with their weapons trained. Gabriel had selected a small detachment to check out the reports about the altar-just the command squad, some scouts, and Matiel’s squad of Space Marines. In the end, he had decided against telling Brom about his scouts’ reports, and the team had slipped out of the makeshift camp in the valley before Toth could ask any questions. No doubt it would not take long for the inquisitor to realise that they were missing, but, hopefully, by then Gabriel would understand what was going on.