Roots of Heresy

Chapter 1

     " I am steel, my mind pure, my cause just." The Captain recited solemnly, harnessed in and awaiting to be dropped into the night time combat zone, " My body unscathed by neither plague or corruption, the enemies of the Emperor flee in my presense. I shall know no such fear, I fear nothing for I am fear encarnate."

     " Drop pod away, the Emperor protects Captain." a hazy voice sounded signalling the captain's departure from his battle barge, the Vigilant Lion. 

     Raphael awoke, finding himself in an unknown land. He quickly rooled to his feet findind that he was in the middle of a burning forest, beyond its firery borders the unmistakible bark of bolter fire. Beyond the screams of the inferno surrounding him the captain's genetically enhanced hearing could pick up on a mighty battle being waged.  The astartes charged forward into the raging fire, his master crafted power armour protecting his flesh from the harsh enviorment, keeping the flames and suffucating heat at bay. The captain emerged through the firestorm, breaking from the tree line and finding himself at the crest of a ridge.

     " Emperor's Throne..." Raphael muttered, completely overwhelmed by the waton destruction he stumbled upon. 

     The ridge line gave way to charred fields, ripped apart by bombardment. The plains filled with burning husks of rhino transport vehicles and wrecked predator battle tanks. The skies burnt deep red and smeared with black plumes of thick oily smoke. All across the battlefield laid the bodies of dead astartes, all dark angels. Their armour a much older pattern then that of the captain's.

     " What befell you, brothers." the captain mourned as he examined the dead marines.

     Honoring his dead bretheren, the captain knelt down, surrounding himself with the fallen. He removed his helmet , the hot this air around him would have killed lesser men but we was a space marine. He gazed down to the nearest marine, the burning rhino hull close by casting an orange wash onto his umber complection. Even with the limited light offered, Raphael sighted an invaluable tool, clutched tightly in the dead marine's hand was a boltgun.

     " Forgive me brother, relinquish to me this sacred instrument of death dealing." Raphael pleaded as gingerly reached for the bolter.

     The corpse surged to life, quickly locking his grasp on the collar of Raphael's power armour, violently yanking the captain close. Raphael, too stunned to repel the attack instead braced himself against the remarkable strength of the once thought dead marine. Unable to pull the captain closer, the near dead marine pulled himself in close, lifting the majority of his power armoured bulk off the ground.

     " Pr-pro-protect th-the legion!" He rasped through intense pain, his will alone staving off death's icy embrace.

     " Brother! Your wounds are greivous, reserve your strength!" Raphael warned realising that he was not being assailed, " Please, I must find you an apocrathary!"

     " Th-the Lion must not f-fall!" the marine gruffed in agony.

     With the last bit of his strength the dying dark angel thrusted the side of his bolter into Raphael's hip, " H-hunt! He is near."

     The marine's body fell limp as the last of his life was extinguished warning his living brother. Raphael laid his dead battle brother agaisnt the wrecked hull of a rhino and took up his bolter, racking the slide and chambering a new shell. 

     " Emperor, receive this sacred angel of death at your side," the captain prayed, " May he finally gain your peace after a lifetime of service in your name."

     Raphael awoke back within the temple grounds, space marines patrolled the tree lines as guardsman stormtroopers recovered their dead.

     " Dreaming again are we?" Chaplain Pattel remarked as he emerged from the darkness of the surrounding ruins, his matte black power armour doing well to cloak his presense in the jungle night.