Chapter 187 - Dark Angels
~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 60→1ch | 100→2ch | 200→5ch ⏰ Resets Monday! Thanks!
"Marneus Calgar, my lord. Calgar will do."
The Chapter Master of the Ultramarines stood before the Lion and worked to keep his voice steady.
He wasn't quite managing it. The appearance of yet another Primarch, and the master of the Dark Angels, no less, had clearly rattled him.
"Forgive the presumption, my lord. Your return was... unexpected."
"Compared to your Gene-Sire Guilliman?"
The Lion pulled back his hood and gave a soft, dismissive scoff.
"As for the Primarchs — the sons of the God-Emperor — forgive me, but that is not a comparison I am able to make. Nor am I qualified to." His voice was earnest and steady. "Lord Lion, on behalf of the Ultramarines, and on behalf of my Gene-Sire, I offer you the highest honor and the most sincere gratitude we have to give."
With that, Calgar rose with the help of his Victrix Guard and bowed.
"You need not bow to me, Calgar. Any hero who fights for the Imperium — should they face hardship, I will lend my aid."
"I am not the only one who came."
The Lion looked out across the plaza.
A band of black-armored Astartes were still cutting through the remnants of the fallen warbands, the Lion's own Absolved Angel sons.
"My sons were here. And my brother Sanguinius arrived the moment your distress signal reached him."
"Lord Sanguinius came as well?"
The surprise on Calgar's face, already plain, deepened.
He had received astropathic transmissions from Terra. Impossible as it had seemed, the Great Angel had truly returned. The same way as Horus, he supposed, though the details were beyond him.
He didn't know the details. But he was glad.
In orbit, the Blood Angels Legion fleet had hit Abaddon's forces like a hammer. The Black Legion and the other fallen warband fleets made emergency Warp jumps and ran. No one was eager to face a Blood Angels Legion at full strength. No one was eager to face Sanguinius.
A handful of stubborn Chaos Space Marines stayed to fight anyway.
Perhaps they told themselves a Primarch was merely a larger obstacle.
They paid for that belief. The fury of the Blood Angels ground them to nothing.
With the void war finished, Sanguinius brought the Sanguinary Guard and Dante down to Vigilus.
"It has been a long time, Lord Calgar."
"Likewise, Commander Dante."
The two Chapter Masters exchanged brief pleasantries, and then Calgar's gaze drifted, almost against his will, to the figure walking ahead of them both.
Even beneath Vigilus's grey and heavy sky, Sanguinius's wings were white enough to make the chest ache. That radiance was the same as the frescoes Calgar had once stood before in the monastery on Baal.
No. It was brighter than any fresco.
The Great Angel had walked Vigilus before, during his crossing of the Dark Imperium, fighting alongside two of his brothers against the enemies here. The locals remembered. When they saw the angel descend again with their own eyes, cheers rolled from the front lines all the way back to the command bastion. Morale surged, visibly, measurably, like a tide coming in.
"We are grateful beyond words that you came," Calgar said. "But the signal couldn't carry that far. How did you receive it?"
"Prophecy, Lord Calgar."
Dante's tone shifted, carrying a thread of unmistakable pride.
"My Gene-Sire is a powerful psyker. He foresaw the attack on Vigilus."
"And we did not come solely to reinforce you."
Calgar followed Dante's gesture toward the Lion.
"There are matters on Vigilus concerning the Dark Angels Chapter. I cannot say more than that. Lord Lion came for them."
"You're looking for the Dark Angels?" Calgar said. "There's a Dark Angels company on the Vigilus defensive line right now. Should I contact them — let them know Lord Lion has returned?"
"Do it. As quickly as possible."
Dante gave a short nod but said nothing further about the purpose.
He had only learned fragments himself, occasional things Sanguinius had mentioned, about Lord Lion and the First Legion. About the Fallen. About the strange, unresolved distance between them and the Dark Angels Chapter that bore their name.
Calgar re-established contact with the Dark Angels Fourth Company. Their commander was Grand Master Korahael.
Throughout the entire Vigilus campaign, that company had been his greatest headache. Refusing to fall under unified command was the only flaw he'd been able to identify, if you were feeling charitable. He had no idea what had brought them to Vigilus in the first place. But a Primarch's return should be good news for anyone.
He explained briefly: the purpose of the call, and the fact that the Primarch Lion was here. Then he listened to a full minute of silence from the other end.
[Are you mocking the Dark Angels, Commander Calgar?]
[I have no such intention, cousin. But I have it from Lord Dante himself, Lord Lion has come for you.]
[Understood. Send us the coordinates. We are on our way.]
Calgar closed the channel. His brow furrowed.
There had been something in Korahael's voice. A panic, fiercely suppressed, but not quite contained.
A Dark Angels Grand Master. Panicked at the news that his Gene-Sire had returned.
He turned the thought over for a moment, then set it aside.
Calgar had always made a point of respecting the internal affairs of other Astartes Chapters, however impenetrable their traditions seemed to outsiders. Whatever the Dark Angels were carrying, that was Lord Lion's to deal with. Calgar had mountains of reconstruction work waiting for him. He had no time to play the curious child.
------------
Korahael came to the coordinates with a handful of veterans at his back.
The Vigilus campaign was over. Their mission was complete. They had been ready to leave.
Then Calgar's transmission came, and every plan fell apart.
He had weighed it over and over on the flight in. In the end, he brought a few men and came himself. He had to see it. He had to know whether what the Ultramarines Chapter Master was claiming was true, whether their Gene-Sire had actually returned.
If it was a lie, Calgar would answer for it. If it was not...
If it was not, then he had no idea at all what face he could show.
The Stormbird's hatch opened. Korahael and his veterans stepped out and crossed into the temporarily cleared plaza.
And stopped dead.
Every one of them.
What were they looking at?
Fifteen warriors in black armor. The mark of the winged sword on their plates.
The Fallen.
Korahael and his men raised their weapons on instinct, training locking onto the blood-kin branded as traitors. Fury, and beneath it, something closer to dread. Because it wasn't only the Fallen here. Their cousins, the Blood Angels, were present too, watching.
"Lower your guns, whelps."
One of the Fallen Angels spoke. His voice was easy, almost bored, carrying a thin edge of contempt. He didn't look up. His hands kept moving, unhurried strokes of a cloth along his sword blade, still wet with enemy blood.
He didn't give Korahael so much as a glance.
"You know what pulling that trigger costs you. Lord Lion will not be forgiving."
The Primarch is here.
Korahael's thoughts stalled completely.
A Primarch and the Fallen, in the same place, at the same time. In his entire frame of understanding, that was more impossible than the Imperium and Chaos sitting down to shake hands. But these were not the most extreme of the Unforgiven, and the Blood Angels around the plaza were turning to look at them now, one after another.
Reason clawed its way back.
Gun barrels lowered, slowly, reluctantly. But not a single pair of eyes left those black-armored figures.
The sons of the Lion in black didn't react. The one cleaning his sword kept cleaning his sword. The one checking his ammunition kept checking his ammunition. Dark muzzles pointed their way, and they simply didn't care.
Maybe they were used to it. The enmity of their own blood, after so long. Maybe they had gone numb.
Then, at the far end of the plaza, two massive figures walked out side by side.
The Lion. And Sanguinius.
Korahael had never seen a Primarch in the flesh. He had stood before the painted images in the Chapter monastery and known them as icons. As history.
Now a thought rose in him, and in every one of his veterans, unasked for, close to sacrilege.
Their Primarch had grown old.
As the Lion approached, the black-armored sons standing in the plaza straightened. They rose and fell into formation on either side, heads up, chests out, silent and proud. The statement was wordless and unmistakable: they belonged here. This was where they stood.
The Lion crossed the distance and stopped before Korahael and his men.
Under that gaze, Korahael's knee hit the ground. So did the others, one after the next. A man's face could lie about what he felt. The tremor in the blood could not.
"My lord."
Korahael opened his mouth to give his name, his rank, and found nothing.
A hand had closed around his throat. Not a real one. The grip of something tangled and crushing, relief and joy and fear all wound together so tightly he couldn't pull a single word through.
His mind was white.
Damn mouth, speak. You're in front of your Gene-Sire. In front of the Primarch himself. Say something.
Say your name. What are you afraid of? You are a Grand Master of the Dark Angels. You have killed xenos and heretics beyond counting. How can you not put a single word together in front of your own father?
"Rise, my sons."
The Lion saw it, the tension, the choked silence. He didn't let it stretch. He bent slightly forward and lifted them up, one by one, with his own hands.
————————————————————
🔥 Patreon members are 60+ chapters ahead.
⚡ Limited-time offer currently running...
👉 Join on -
patreon(.)com/DarkGolds