My Life as A Death Guard
Chapter 409: Everyone Has a Bright Future
"I just…"
Bright sunlight streamed in through the window. Sitting on the sofa, Roboute Guilliman lifted his eyes and saw a few white clouds drifting across the clear skies of Macragge.
The warm fragrance of tea rose before him. His adoptive mother, Tarasha Euten, sat quietly across from him, encouraging the demigod to continue with her gaze.
Guilliman let out a weary sigh.
"I just don't understand what exactly happened."
He spread his hands helplessly, as if to display his confusion.
"Three squads of Iron Warriors arrived at Macragge. The one leading them was Dantioch. I've mentioned him to you before. The Warsmith of the Iron Warriors."
When speaking of the Iron Warriors, Guilliman's words faltered slightly.
"A rational and steadfast warrior. I remember him," Euten said calmly.
"What is it? Surely this isn't worse news than the Astronomican going dark?"
There was a moment of silence. Then Guilliman drew in a long, deep breath. He buried his face in his large hands, fingers running through his short golden hair.
"…I don't know."
He spoke slowly.
"He said… Perturabo is dead."
The surface of the tea in Euten's cup rippled almost imperceptibly. But Guilliman continued—
"Or worse, that he has betrayed us."
"Betrayed your father?" Euten asked gently.
Guilliman inhaled sharply and gave a subdued hum of affirmation.
"Every Space Marine shares a special bond with their Primarch. Dantioch told me that in the months before the Astronomican went dark, every Iron Warrior he knew experienced some kind of horrific vision."
"He firmly believes something ill has occurred."
Guilliman paused and straightened up again, looking at Euten. He felt a flicker of guilt—perhaps he was being cruel. He should not burden her with these matters.
"As it turns out, he was right."
Guilliman continued.
"On the final day, they all dreamed the same dream."
His voice slowed, confusion evident.
"After the Head of the Silent Sisterhood, Hades… they could no longer sense their connection to Perturabo."
Euten blinked and parted her lips.
"And that day was—?"
"The Day of Catastrophe."
Guilliman answered.
"The Astronomican went dark. The galaxy split apart. One-third of the psykers in the Five Hundred Worlds of Macragge went mad, and the rest were unable to function normally for quite some time."
Silence settled between them. Outside, birds chattered noisily among the branches of Macragge.
Inside, steam slowly rose from the teacup.
"It sounds as though something happened beyond the reach of our sight," Euten said carefully.
"Does this leave you feeling disheartened, my child?"
Guilliman felt bitterness in his mouth, but he answered her in the end.
"Yes."
His response was low and heavy. He imagined he must look wretched right now.
Euten's voice echoed softly through the room.
"But you did well, Lord of Macragge. On that day, didn't you successfully calm the people and deploy the army to take control of the psykers?"
"Perhaps something cruel is unfolding across the galaxy," she paused, "But the Five Hundred Worlds remain intact under your leadership. Perhaps the other worlds and Legions are the same."
"We are merely unable to contact them for now."
A tense smile touched Guilliman's lips, but gradually he relaxed.
He shook his head lightly.
"I should not be so pessimistic."
Perhaps he truly had been frightened by what happened that day. Even now, if one stood upon any plain of Macragge and looked up, one could still see the scar that cut across the galaxy.
Euten shifted slightly and took a sip of tea.
"Tell me about Hades," she continued. "I heard from Gage that this time Macragge's compulsory measures toward psykers were modeled after the Silent Sisterhood's practices?"
"And Dantioch and the others that dreamed of Hades… I recall you mentioning him. He was a member of the Death Guard, was he not?"
Guilliman smiled faintly.
"Actually," he said, "I'm not entirely sure what Hades truly is, but I know that he and Mortarion shared uniquely sharp insights regarding psychic matters."
"However…"
Guilliman recalled the scene from back then.
"When I last saw that fine warrior, he was with Malcador."
"The Imperial Regent Malcador," Euten said.
"Then it seems Hades is not simply a Death Guard."
Guilliman shook his head.
"He never was. Even back when he was still a member of the Death Guard, I realized he possessed unparalleled talent."
He took a sip of tea.
"If only he were here on Macragge now…. The Ultramarines are sorely in need of someone like him."
Euten smiled.
"Perhaps you will encounter him again."
Guilliman nodded.
"If warp travel is still possible, then he will come here."
With the guiding light of the Astronomican extinguished, and in order to preserve navigation within Ultramar's borders, Guilliman had activated the Pharos Beacon discovered by Dantioch and his companions.
The Pharos Beacon—xenos technology—was, in a sense, a miniature Astronomican, capable of replacing part of Terra's beacon-guidance function.
Partly to gather intelligence on nearby star systems, and partly because he had previously arranged with the Twelfth Legion, the World Eaters, to welcome them to Macragge for resupply and recuperation.
Angron's homeworld, Nuceria, lay at the edge of Ultramar's domain. Yet for reasons unknown, the Lord of the Red Sands harbored no fondness for that planet.
After the Council of Nikaea, the already undermanned World Eaters had been searching for supply worlds. Out of pure brotherly sentiment, Guilliman had invited Angron and his Legion to Macragge to rest and replenish.
Unaware that the World Eaters had already been over-supplied within the Maelstrom, Guilliman assumed the Twelfth Legion was enduring rather harsh conditions.
Yet before the World Eaters could reach Macragge, the Astronomican had gone dark.
To ensure that the Twelfth Legion could still find Macragge—and in hopes of rescuing ships stranded near Ultramar by warp storms—Guilliman chose to ignite the Pharos Beacon.
However, he would not know that the first Legion to arrive at Macragge would not be the World Eaters.
Guilliman sipped his tea and pondered. Once the Ultramarines' Navigators recovered, he would dispatch forces to Terra at once. No matter the circumstances, the extinction of the Astronomican was an event beyond imagination.
But at this moment, Guilliman lacked sufficient intelligence to judge the overall situation.
In any case, he thought, the Ultramarines would be unable to undertake long-range warp travel in the short term. What he could do now was clear.
He needed to first calm the populace panicked by the galactic anomaly—and the psykers writhing in agony.
Guilliman let out a quiet sigh. He was beginning to feel the absence of someone within the Ultramarines with anti-psyker expertise like Hades.
He looked up. The clear skies of Macragge were reflected in his blue eyes.
. . .
Baal was burning.
"Shoot those bastards out of the sky!!!"
Nassir Amit of the Blood Angels roared at the top of his lungs. Spittle sprayed across the vox grille inside his helmet, hissing against the metal.
The damned red thing blasted hot breath at him. Without hesitation, Amit swung his emptied boltgun like a club straight into the monster's head—
Once! Twice! Three times!!!
Blood and shattered bone splattered across his helm. The thing stopped shrieking about blood and skulls.
Amit kicked the twitching lump of ruined flesh away, hurled his boltgun after it, and roared as he drew the barbed flaying knife from his belt.
"Be worthy of Sanguinius' blood! Charge with me!!!"
As Captain of the Fifth Company of the Blood Angels, he surged forward first—like a raging bull crashing straight into the ranks of a Khorne Bloodletter.
His curses and battle cries—"For the blood of Sanguinius!"—rose so fiercely that they drowned out even the howls of "Skulls for the Skull Throne!"
The blood-crazed figure tore through the Bloodletters in a frenzy. Blood drenched his already vivid armor an even deeper crimson. Behind Amit, the Fifth Company of the Blood Angels fought just as valiantly against the towering fiends.
For a time, their vox channel was filled with nothing but roars and furious battle cries.
Amit hacked off the head of a Bloodletter whose skull seemed grotesquely studded with four horn-like protrusions. He kicked the severed head aside with his blade. The rising howls in the vox made him frown.
Among them, one warrior's voice sounded wrong. He was no longer shouting their noble war cry—only a shrill, maddened scream.
Now of all times!
Damn it—the Red Thirst!
Snarling, Amit drove his blade into the chest of another Bloodletter charging at him. He roared, his command booming through the channel:
"John! Get over here! Get the hell over here!!!"
The Blood Angel called John was grappling wildly with a Bloodletter, smashing his own head repeatedly against the creature's skull. The daemon was already incapacitated, but John continued battering it in blind frenzy.
"Get back here, John! Or I'll put you down myself!!!"
John snapped his head around. He tore off his helmet, which hit the ground with a dull clang.
Under Baal's dazzling, blood-red sunset, John's pale face looked both handsome and grotesquely twisted. Blood trickled from beneath his curled golden hair—and from the corner of his mouth as well.
He bared his fangs. Even for a Blood Angel, they were far too long, far too sharp.
He took a few slow steps forward—then suddenly broke into a mad sprint straight toward Amit at the front line.
Amit, locked in a standoff with a Khorne Bloodletter a meter taller than himself, let out a guttural snarl.
"Open your eyes and see who you're charging at!"
But John showed no hesitation. He lunged at the nearest living being—Amit.
Cursing under his breath, Amit shouted and seized the daemon's arm.
"Haah!!!"
He dragged the massive creature down with him. The next instant, John came howling in, pouncing onto the Bloodletter that Amit had pulled over himself as a shield.
Amit spat curses as he felt the unlucky daemon convulsing atop him. His blade shot straight up into the creature's abdomen.
The daemon gnawed frantically at Amit's helmet. He could hear the distinct crack of ceramite fracturing.
Blood poured down—but it wasn't Amit's. The daemon was bleeding. That was John's doing.
Moments later, the Bloodletter fell silent.
Amit shoved the corpse aside and, still swearing, cut down another witless fiend that rushed him.
He looked up and saw John's figure vanish deeper into the ranks of the Bloodletters. Blood and fragments of power armor sprayed into the air. He heard a bestial roar—
But it wasn't coming from the monsters.
With one hand, Amit tore off his shattered faceplate. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the daemon at his feet. Blood streamed from where the creature had bitten into his helm.
"Advance! Hold formation! Use melee weapons whenever possible!!!"
He roared the orders, resolving not to waste another thought on the doomed fool.
Then, immediately, the rush of wind from above sounded behind him.
"Captain!"
"For the blood of Sanguinius!!!"
His battle-brothers shouted from behind.
Amit knew exactly who had arrived.
With one casual motion, he brushed the scraps of flesh from his shoulder guard, clearing the Chapter emblem—then charged forward once more.
A vast, speeding shadow swept across him from above. For an instant, Amit thought he felt the faintest brush of softness against his face—
The next moment, the Angel descended from the heavens.
The true Angel of Wrath fell from the sky, landing in the very heart of the enemy ranks. The immense impact of his arrival hurled the surrounding Bloodletters off their feet.
The Angel raised his golden spear high. In his crimson, blood-bright eyes burned boundless fury. Those war-hardened Bloodletters were, in this moment, nothing more than pitiful toys before a Primarch. The spear swept in wide arcs, singing through the air.
A golden crescent flashed around the Angel. His wings beat once—violently—and the circular spray of blood that burst outward could not even keep pace with the last trailing white feather of his passing.
Descending among the Bloodletters of Khorne, the Great Angel Sanguinius was the incarnation of slaughter itself.
Blood and skulls flew. In mere moments, the host of Khorne's Bloodletters that had been entangled with the Fifth Company was reduced to scattered pools of gore. Severed limbs steamed in the air, twitching upon the mud thick with blood.
When the final daemon's head struck the ground, the Angel lowered his spear.
The wings that had beaten ceaselessly in battle slowly folded. Blood flowed from the white feathers—yet did not stain them red.
The Angel lowered his gaze. Following his Primarch's line of sight, Amit saw what remained of John's barely recognizable corpse.
The Great Angel blinked once. Then he raised his head and looked toward Amit. Within those crimson eyes churned countless complex emotions, ones Amit could not decipher.
A dry smile cracked across Amit's lips.
"Father… this was the optimal solution. I am sorry."
The Angel said nothing.
A gust of wind rose as Sanguinius' wings lifted once more.
He needed to depart at once for other battlefields—to aid his sons.
He left Amit and the Fifth Company standing amid a sea of blood.
The muscles in Amit's face twitched. He strode forward into the deepest part of the carnage.
There, upon the mangled ruin of flesh, he saw it—a single white feather.
Amit reached up and roughly wiped the blood from his face.
"Damn it…" he muttered hoarsely, already resuming command of the Fifth Company to prepare for further fighting.
Since the day the galaxy had suddenly torn itself apart, Baal had inexplicably sprouted countless crimson monsters that charged at anyone they saw, blades swinging.
The outbreak had been abrupt. With communications severed without warning, most people had no idea what had happened.
Baal had descended instantly into chaos.
They could not reach Terra. They could not reach the Warmaster.
For now, they stood utterly alone.
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