The Complete Rafen Omnibus by James Swallow

Author:James Swallow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-09T10:53:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOUR

The skies over Baal were filled with crimson.

Dozens of warships ranging in size from small corvettes to massive grand cruisers lay in lines of stately repose, at high anchor over the desert world’s equator. Each craft had its own packet of space to surround it, each ship positioned in the same orbital plane so that no one vessel was seen to be above or below the others, in order to satisfy protocol. Only one group of craft drifted higher, near the dry docks at cislunar positions; the warcraft of the Blood Angels themselves. This was only right and proper; Baal was the home world of the Chapter and they were its masters. Every other Astartes gathered here was an honoured guest – to be respected, indeed, but still a guest.

Rafen imagined that some of his cousins would chafe before such a display, and he understood the feeling. The role had been reversed only a short time before on Eritaen. But now the Flesh Tearers were the invited of his Chapter, and it was upon them to tread carefully. Not that they will. It isn’t their way.

He considered Seth once again, wondering if the Chapter Master was watching the same display from the Tycho’s staterooms three decks down. He was a curious one; Seth confounded Rafen’s expectation of what he thought a Flesh Tearer would be. He had no outward show of the bloodthirsty arrogance that Gorn and Noxx displayed. Their Chapter Master was eternally dour, distant in thought, as if he were still fighting a battle in some far off place that only his sight could reach. Seth was the polar opposite to the charismatic Dante.

The Tycho moved with care into a pre-determined block of sky and came to a steady stop on spears of thrust, anchoring in a geostationary position. To the starboard floated a red frigate with yellow trim, with a plunging solar sail emerging from the ventral hull. Upon the shimmering panel, there was the silhouette of a great black grail and above it a dark falling droplet.

‘Blood Drinkers,’ said Kayne, half to himself, the young Space Marine approaching the viewing window where his commander stood. ‘They came all the way from the Lethe Front, so I heard.’

Rafen nodded but said nothing. Beyond the Blood Drinker ship lay a battle cruiser whose prow was a gigantic bone-white skull. Ruby-coloured wings reached back from it down the length of the bow. He saw the maws of torpedo bays inside the huge, sightless eye sockets. The rest of the craft was rendered in only two colours; the starboard side from stem to stern all in rich red, the port a nightfall black. ‘The Angels Sanguine,’ he noted, breaking his silence to point out the vessel to the youth. ‘And beyond them the ships of the Angels Vermillion.’

‘I feel blessed to see this day,’ Kayne was humbled by the sight. ‘How many of our battle-brothers can say they witnessed such an august gathering as this one, sir?’ He smiled slightly.

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