The Horus Heresy: An Angel's Wrath

[Son of Carnelian]

The angels had fallen.

 

Dozens of the red-armored Space Marines lay strewn across the darkened field, their forms lifeless and utterly still. Their blood mingled with the crimson of their armor in dark streaks, only illuminated by the scant glimmers of this world’s moon. Already the vultures circled overhead, their avian forms awaiting the departure of the Blood Angels’ slayers.

 

Praetor Hector Agathon felt his breath coming through his lungs in wet, ragged gasps. He could feel a large piece of shrapnel lodged into his neck. His armor had sustained serious damage all over, but here and there pieces of a broken blade or a metal shard protruded at cruel angles. The Blood Angels had fought to the last man, and now that last man limped towards the broken form of an apothecary.

 

Agathon crumpled to his knees, hoping that the warriors that had felled his brothers didn’t take notice of him before he completed this one final task. He fumbled across the deceased apothecary, searching frantically for the canister— There. He cradled the precious item close to his chest, concealing it as best he could beneath his massive power fist.

 

He tried standing again, but his legs would no longer work. No matter, he had reached his objective. His final task lay ahead, but it would require an astronomical amount of luck and skill. Even then, it required the compliance of a foe that had no concept of honor, a trait that they had reaffirmed in undertaking this cowardly ambush in the dead of night.

 

One of the hunters of the Blood Angels noticed him. The killer strode over to him, confidant that his prey would not flee. As he drew closer, Agathon could hear the sound of laughter emanating from his vox grill. The Blood Angel fumed at the maniac’s perverse glee. He hated this legion, dammit. So monstrous, even before Horus’ corruption sank into them.

 

Night Lords. Damn them, every single last one.

 

“Angel,’ the killer barked through his helmet. ‘You look like you could use some help.” Agathon pushed down his fury. Let him think he held all the power here. Let him think this some sort of twisted joke. It might make this easier. Or at least, not completely impossible.

 

“As a matter of— matter of fact, I could,’ Agathon replied. His voice choked and gurgled with blood, and his attempts at speech only amused the Night Lord further. ‘I would— would speak with your commander.”

 

Now the laughter came hearty and strong. It drew the attention of other nearby Night Lords, still picking their way through the debris of the battle for anything they might repurpose for their own sinister ends. Agathon could already see pieces of red armor clutched in dark gauntlets. Weapons, ammo, even legion standards had already made their way into these scavengers’ clutches.

 

“Surrendering, Blood Angel?’ the Night Lord asked so that his fellows could hear. ‘You hear this, brothers? He wishes to surrender now!” More laughter, more mockery. Agathon growled low, his anger needing some sort of release before he did the drastic thing and ruined his whole plan.

 

“Your commander, Night Lord,’ Agathon replied, the steel returning to his shaking voice. Let them laugh. He would see them all dead if this worked. If. ‘If only so that you might share your disgusting jest with him.” The Night Lord paused at this. Perhaps he hadn’t expected this venom from a defeated enemy; perhaps he simply found no humor in the Blood Angel’s situation anymore. The hunter’s vox clicked behind his helmet and a few moments later, a beast of the apocalypse strode past him.

 

Agathon had seen terrible sights even before the Heresy. The Great Crusade had purged human civilizations founded on cannibalism and mutilation. He had seen children freed from slavery, their tiny forms covered in networks of scars. He had seen the perversions of the alien, the insatiable appetites of beings who existed only through the lechery of human life. He had never seen this. The Astartes towering above him wore a suit or Terminator armor, but one far fouler than any that Agathon had ever witnessed before. Heads of all shapes stood silent witness to the scene, impaled on wicked spikes that had no tactical purpose. Lighting, alive and dangerous, streaked across the monster’s armor in wide arks, creating a devilish illumination that made Agathon wonder if he had already passed into the Hell of ancient Terran legend. But above all else, the blood of uncounted masses made itself into a tapestry across the warrior’s armor. Agathon could swear that faces peered from within the blood streaks, their screams silently echoing in his mind.

 

“You requested an audience, Blood Angel,’ the beast of a man growled. ‘Make it quick. I’ve grown hungry slaughtering your men, and your gene-seed will make a most excellent chaser to this whole affair.” Agathon spared one glance down at the canister beneath his power fist. Still operable, still functioning. Perfect. Now came the hardest part, the selling of the sacrifice. After all, some of the Night Lords clustering around him might survive. They would bear the tale back to their legion.

 

“You beat us,’ Agathon coughed. Dammit, he had less time than he originally thought. ‘You beat us. But I would have thought that your primarch would have taught you the folly— folly of a pyrrhic victory.”

 

“Our primarch doesn’t teach us much,’ the commander of the Night Lords replied. Incredibly, Agathon could hear the sneer in the monster’s voice. ‘Besides, I don’t see a pyrrhic victory here, Blood Angel. Just you bleeding out on the ground, cradling your oh-so-precious gene-seed.” Gene-seed. Oh, perfect. Absolutely perfect. The fool thought that Agathon held gene-seed beneath his fist, completely ignorant of the other possibilities. Agathon let out a low laugh, the sound coming out at little more than a gurgle.

 

“Look… closer.”

 

The next few seconds stretched into what felt like hours for every assembled warrior. Electricity crackled across Agathon’s power fist as he directed every remaining bit of energy left in his armor into it. His fingers tightened around the object in his grip, denting and rending it in places, revealing a blindingly bright light from within the canister. Before any of the Night Lords could so much as cry out, Agathon took his power fist and squeezed the melta bomb in his grip, detonating it in conjunction with the final release of the built up power in his sacred weapon. In that moment just before the light overcame the Blood Angel, he saw the terror that had coursed through his eyes when he beheld the beast echoing now in the Night Lords’ own.

 

The light swept over Agathon, the Night Lords, and their twisted commander. The night itself bloomed into a new day, one that illuminated the entire battlefield and brightened the fallen angels' crimson armor into a bright red shade.

 

One resembling the color of blood.