The Horus Heresy
Ben Counter
Galaxy in Flames
The heresy revealed
With extra-special thanks to Graham McNeill, for making Galaxy in Flames the book it is.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
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First page illustration by Neil Roberts.
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The Horus Heresy
It is a time of legend.
Mighty heroes battle for the right to rule the galaxy.
The vast armies of the Emperor of Earth have conquered
the galaxy in a Great Crusade – the myriad alien races have
been smashed by the Emperor's elite warriors and wiped
from the face of history.
The dawn of a new age of supremacy for humanity beckons.
Gleaming citadels of marble and gold celebrate the many victories of the Emperor. Triumphs are raised on a million worlds to record the epic deeds of his most powerful and deadly warriors.
First and foremost amongst these are the primarchs,
superheroic beings who have led the Emperor's armies of
Space Marines in victory after victory. They are unstoppable
and magnificent, the pinnacle of the Emperor's genetic
experimentation. The Space Marines are the mightiest
human warriors the galaxy has ever known, each capable of
besting a hundred normal men or more in combat.
Organised into vast armies of tens of thousands called Legions, the Space Marines and their primarch leaders conquer the galaxy in the name of the Emperor.
Chief amongst the primarchs is Horus, called the Glorious, the Brightest Star, favourite of the Emperor, and like a son unto him. He is the Warmaster, the commander-in-chief of the Emperor's military might, subjugator of a thousand thousand worlds and conqueror of the galaxy. He is a warrior without peer, a diplomat supreme, and his ambtion knows no bounds.
The stage has been set.
~ DRAMATIS PERSONAE ~
The Primarchs
The Warmaster Horus
Commander of the Sons of Horns Legion
Angron Primarch of the World Eaters
Fulgrim Primarch of the Emperor's Children
Mortarion Primarch of the Death Guard
The Sons of Horus
Ezekyle Abaddon First Captain of the Sons of Horus
Tarik Torgaddon Captain, 2nd Company, Sons of Horus
Iacton Qruze, 'the Half-heard' Captain, 3rd Company, Sons of Horus
Horus Aximand, 'Little Horus' Captain, 5th Company, Sons of Horus
Serghar Targost Captain, 7th Company, Sons of Horus, lodge master
Garviel Loken Captain, 10th Company, Sons of Horus
Luc Sedirae Captain, 13th Company, Sons of Horus
Tybalt Marr, 'the Either' Captain, 18th Company, Sons of Horus
Kalus Ekaddon, Captain Catulan Reaver Squad, Sons of Horus
Falkus Kibre, 'Widowmaker' Captain, Justaerin Terminator Squad, Sons of Horus
Nero Vipus Sergeant, Locasta Tactical Squad, Sons of Horus
Maloghurst 'the Twisted' Equerry to the Warmaster
Other Space Marines
Erebus First Chaplain of the Word Bearers
Kharn Captain, 8th Assault Company of the World Eaters
Nathanial Garro Captain of the Death Guard
Lucius Emperor's Children swordsman
Saul tarvitz First Captain of the Emperor's Children
Eidolon Lord Commander of the Emperor's Children
Fabius Bile Emperor's Children Apothecary
The Legio Mortis
Princeps Esau Turnet Commander of the Dies Irae, an Imperator-class Titan
Moderati Primus Cassar One of the senior crew of the Dies Irae
Moderati Primus Aruken Another of the Dies Irae 's crew
Non-Astartes Imperials
Mechanicum Adept Regulus Mechanicum representative to Horus, he commands the Legion's robots and maintains its fighting machines
Ing мае Sing Mistress of Astropaths
Kyril Sindermann Primary iterator
Mersadie Oliton Official remembrancer, documentarist
Euphrati Keeler Official remembrancer, imagist
Peeter Egon Momus Architect Designate
Maggard Maloghurst's civilian enforcer
PART ONE
LONG KNIVES
ONE
The Emperor protects
Long night
The music of the spheres
'I was there,' said Titus Cassar, his wavering voice barely reaching the back of the chamber. 'I was there the day that Horus turned his face from the Emperor,’
His words brought a collective sigh from the Lec-titio Divinitatus congregation and as one they lowered their heads at such a terrible thought. From the back of the chamber, an abandoned munitions hold deep in the under-decks of the Warmaster's flagship, the Vengeful Spirit, Kyril Sindermann watched and winced at Cassar's awkward delivery. The man was no iterator, that was for sure, but his words carried the sure and certain faith of someone who truly believed in the things he was saying.
Sindermann envied him that certainty.
It had been many months since he had felt anyВthing approaching certainty.
As the Primary Iterator of the 63rd Expedition, it was Kyril Sindermann's job to promulgate the Imperial Truth of the Great Crusade, illuminating those worlds brought into compliance of the rule of the Emperor and the glory of the Imperium. BringВing the light of reason and secular truth to the furthest flung reaches of the ever-expanding human empire had been a noble undertaking.
But somewhere along the way, things had gone wrong.
Sindermann wasn't sure when it had happened. On Xenobia? On Davin? On Aureus? Or on any one of a dozen other worlds brought into compliance?
Once he had been known as the arch prophet of secular truth, but times had changed and he found himself remembering his Sahlonum, the Sumatu-ran philosopher who had wondered why the light of new science seemed not to illuminate as far as the old sorceries had.
Titus Cassar continued his droning sermon, and Sindermann returned his attention to the man. Tall and angular, Cassar wore the uniform of a moderati primus, one of the senior commanders of the Dies Irae, an Imperator-class Battle Titan. Sindermann suspected it was this rank, combined with his earВlier friendship with Euphrati Keeler, that had granted his status within the Lectitio Divinitatus; status that he was clearly out of his depth in hanВdling.
Euphrati Keeler: imagist, evangelist…
…Saint.
He remembered meeting Euphrati, a feisty, supremely self-confident woman, on the embarkaВtion deck before they had left for the surface of Sixty-Three Nineteen, unaware of the horror they would witness in the depths of the Whisperhead Mountains.
Together with Captain Loken, they had seen the warp-spawned monstrosity Xayver Jubal had been wrought into. Sindermann had struggled to ratioВnalise what he had seen by burying himself in his books and learning to better understand what had occurred. Euphrati had no such sanctuary and had turned to the growing Lectitio Divinitatus cult for solace.
Venerating the Emperor as a divine being, the cult had grown from humble beginnings to a moveВment that was spreading throughout the Expedition fleets of the galaxy – much to the fury of the War-master. Where before the cult had lacked a focus, in Euphrati Keeler, it had found its first martyr and saint.
Sindermann remembered the day when he had witnessed Euphrati Keeler stand before a nightmare horror from beyond the gates of the Empyrean and hurl it back from whence it had come. He had seen her bathed in killing fire and walk away unscathed, a blinding light streaming from the outstretched hand in which she had held a silver Imperial eagle. Others had seen it too, Ing Mae Sing, Mistress of the Fleet's astropaths and a dozen of the ship's arms men. Word had spread fast and Euphrati had
become, overnight, a saint in the eyes of the faithВful and an icon to cling to on the frontier of space.
He was unsure why he had even come to this meeting – not a meeting, he corrected himself, but a service, a religious sermon – for there was a very real danger of recognition. Membership of the Lec-titio Divinitatus was forbidden and if he were discovered, it would be the end of his career as an iterator.
'Now we shall contemplate the word of the Emperor,’ continued Cassar, reading from a small leather chapbook. Sindermann was reminded of the Bondsman Number 7 books in which the late Ignace Karkasy had written his scandalous poetry. Poetry that had, if Mersadie Oliton's suspicions were correct, caused his murder.
Sinderman thought that the writings of the Lecti-tio Divinitatus were scarcely less dangerous.
We have some new faithful among us,' said CasВsar, and Sindermann felt every eye in the chamber turn upon him. Used to facing entire continents' worth of audience, Sindermann was suddenly acutely embarrassed by their scrutiny.
When people are first drawn to adoration of the Emperor, it is only natural that they should have questions,’ said Cassar. They know the Emperor must be a god, for he has god-like powers over all human species, but aside from this, they are in the dark.'
This, at least, Sindermann agreed with.
'Most importantly, they ask, "If the Emperor truly is a god, then what does he do with his divine
power?" We do not see His hand reaching down from the sky, and precious few of us are blessed with visions granted by Him. So does he not care for the majority of His subjects?"
They do not see the falsehood of such a belief. His hand lies upon all of us, and every one of us owes him our devotion. In the depths of the warp, the Emperor's mighty soul does battle with the dark things that would break through and consume us all. On Terra, he creates wonders that will bring peace, enlightenment and the fruition of all our dreams to the galaxy. The Emperor guides us, teaches us, and exhorts us to become more than we are, but most of all, the Emperor protects,’
The Emperor protects,’ said the congregation in unison.
The faith of the Lectitio Divinitatus, the Divine Word of the Emperor, is not an easy path to follow. Where the Imperial Truth is comforting in its rigВorous rejection of the unseen and the unknown, the Divine Word requires the strength to believe in that which we cannot see. The longer we look upon this dark galaxy and live through the fires of its conquest, the more we realise that the Emperor's divinity is the only truth that can exist. We do not seek out the Divine Word; instead, we hear it, and are compelled to follow it. Faith is not a flag of allegiance or a theory for debate; it is something deep within us, complete and inevitable. The LecВtitio Divinitatus is the expression of that faith, and only by acknowledging the Divine Word can we
understand the path the Emperor has laid before mankind.'
Fine words, thought Sindermann: fine words, poorly delivered, but heartfelt. He could see that they had touched something deep inside those who heard it. An orator of skill could sway entire worlds with such words and force of belief.
Before Cassar could continue, Sindermann heard sudden shouts coming from the maze of corridors that led into the chamber. He turned as a panicked woman hurled the door behind him open with a dull clang of metal. In her wake, Sindermann could hear the hard bangs of bolter rounds.
The congregation started in confusion, looking to Cassar for an explanation, but the man was as nonВplussed as they were.
'They've found you,’ yelled Sindermann, realising what was happening.
'Everyone, get out,' shouted Cassar. 'Scatter!'
Sindermann pushed his way through the panickВing crowd to the front of the chamber and towards Cassar. Some members of the congregation were producing guns, and from their martial bearing, SinВdermann guessed they were Imperial Army troopers. Some were clearly ship's crewmen, and Sindermann knew enough of religion to know that they would defend their faith with violence if they had to.
'Come on, iterator. It's time we got out of here,’ said Cassar, dragging the venerable iterator towards one of the many access corridors that radiated from the chamber.
Seeing the worry on his face, Cassar said, 'Don't worry, Kyril, the Emperor protects,’
'I certainly hope so,’ replied Sindermann breathВlessly.
Shots echoed from the ceiling and bright muzzle flashes strobed from the walls. Sindermann threw a glance over his shoulder and saw the bulky, armoured form of Astartes entering the chamber. His heart skipped a beat at the thought of being the enemy of such warriors.
Sindermann hurriedly followed Cassar into the access corridor and through a set of blast doors, their path twisting through the depths of the ship. The Vengeful Spirit was an immense vessel and he had no idea of the layout of this area, its walls grim and industrial compared to the magnificence of the upper decks.
'Do you know where you are going?' wheezed Sindermann, his breath coming in hot, agonised spikes and his ancient limbs already tiring from exertion he was scarcely used to.
'Engineering,’ said Cassar. 'It's like a maze down there and we have friends in the engine crew. Damn, why can't they just let us be?'
'Because they are scared of you,’ said Sindermann, 'just like I was,’
'And you are certain of this?' asked Horus, Pri-march of the Sons of Horus Legion and Warmaster of the Imperium, his voice echoing around the cavВernous strategium of the Vengeful Spirit.
'As certain as I can be,’ said Ing Mae Sing, the 63rd Expedition's Mistress of Astropaths. Her face was lined and drawn and her blind eyes were sunken within ravaged eye sockets. The demands of sendВing hundreds of telepathic communications across the galaxy weighed heavily on her skeletal frame. Astropathic acolytes gathered about her, robed in the same ghostly white as she and wordlessly whisВpering muttered doggerel of the ghastly images in their heads.
'How long do we have?' asked Horus.
As with all things connected with the warp, it is difficult to be precise,’ replied Ing Mae Sing.
'Mistress Sing,’ said Horus coldly, 'precision is exactly what I need from you, now more than ever. The direction of the Crusade will change dramatiВcally at this news, and if you are wrong it will change for the worse,’
'My lord, I cannot give you an exact answer, but I believe that within days the gathering warp storms will obscure the Astronomican from us,’ replied Ing Mae Sing, ignoring the Warmaster's implicit threat. Though she could not see them, she could feel the hostile presence of the Jus-taerin warriors, the Sons of Horus First Company Terminators, lurking in the shadows of the strate-gium. 'Within days we shall hardly see it. Our minds can barely reach across the void and the Navigators claim that they will soon be unable to guide us true. The galaxy will be a place of night and darkness,’
Horus pounded a hand into his fist. 'Do you understand what you say? Nothing more dangerous could happen to the Crusade,’
'I merely state what I see, Warmaster,’
'If you are wrong.
The threat was not idle – no threat the Warmaster uttered ever was. There had been a time when the Warmaster's anger would never have led to such an overt threat, but the violence in Horus's tone sugВgested that such a time had long passed.
'If we are wrong, we suffer. It has never been any different,’
And my brother primarchs? What news from them?' asked Horus.
'We have been unable to confirm contact with the blessed Sanguinius,’ replied Ing Mae Sing, 'and Leman Russ has sent no word of his campaign against the Thousand Sons,’
Horus laughed, a harsh Cthonic bark, and said, That doesn't surprise me. The Wolf has his head and he'll not easily be distracted from teaching Magnus a lesson. And the others?'
Vulkan and Dorn are returning to Terra. The other primarchs are pursuing their current camВpaigns,’
That is good at least,’ said Horus, brow furrowing in thought, 'and what of the Fabricator General?'
'Forgive me, Warmaster, but we have received nothing from Mars. We shall endeavour to make contact by mechanical means, but this will take many months,’
'You have failed in this, Sing. Co-ordination with Mars is essential.'
Ing Mae Sing had telepathically broadcast a mulВtitude of encoded messages between the Vengeful Spirit and Fabricator General Kelbor-Hal of the Mechanicum in the last few weeks. Although their substance was unknown to her, the emotions conВtained in them were all too clear. Whatever the Warmaster was planning, the Mechanicum was a key part of it.
Horus spoke again, distracting her from her thoughts. The other primarchs, have they received their orders?'
They have, my lord,' said Ing Mae Sing, unable to keep the unease from her voice.
The reply from Lord Guilliman of the UltraВmarines was clean and strong. They are approaching the muster at Calth and report all forces are ready to depart.'
'And Lorgar?' asked Horus.
Ing Mae Sing paused, as if unsure how to phrase her next words.
'His message had residual symbols of… pride and obedience; very strong, almost fanatical. He acknowledges your attack order and is making good speed to Calth,’
Ing Mae Sing prided herself on her immense self-control, as befitted one whose emotions had to be kept in check lest they be changed by the influence of the warp, but even she could not keep some emotion from surfacing.
'Something bothers you Mistress Sing?' asked Horus, as though reading her mind.
'My lord?'
You seem troubled by my orders,’
'It is not my place to be troubled or otherwise, my lord,’ said Ing Mae Sing neutrally.
'Correct,’ agreed Horus. 'It is not, yet you doubt the wisdom of my course,’
'No!' cried Ing Mae Sing. 'It is just that it is hard not to feel the nature of your communication, the weight of blood and death that each message is wreathed in. It is like breathing fiery smoke with every message we send,’
You must trust me, Mistress Sing,’ said Horus. Trust that everything I do is for the good of the Imperium. Do you understand?'
'It is not my place to understand,’ whispered the astropath. 'My role in the Crusade is to do the will of my Warmaster,’
That is true, but before I dismiss you, Mistress Sing, tell me something,’
Yes, my lord?'
Tell me of Euphrati Keeler,’ said Horus. Tell me of the one they are calling the saint,’
Loken still took Mersadie Oliton's breath away. The Astartes were astonishing enough when arrayed for war in their burnished plate, but that sight had been nothing compared to what a Space Marine – specifically, Loken – looked like without his armour.
Stripped to the waist and wearing only pale fatigues and combat boots, Loken glistened with sweat as he ducked and wove between the combat appendages of a training servitor. Although few of the remembrancers had been privileged enough to witness an Astartes fight in battle, it was said that they could kill with their bare hands as effectively as they could with a bolter and chainsword. WatchВing Loken demolishing the servitor limb by limb, Mersadie could well believe it. She saw such power in his broad, over-muscled torso and such intense focus in his sharp grey eyes that she wondered that she was not repelled by Loken. He was a killing machine, created and trained to deal death, but she couldn't stop watching and blink-clicking images of his heroic physique.
Kyril Sindermann sat next to her and leaned over, saying, 'Don't you have plenty of picts of Garviel already?'
Loken tore the head from the training servitor and turned to face them both, and Mersadie felt a thrill of anticipation. It had been too long since the conclusion of the war against the Technocracy and she had spent too few hours with the captain of the Tenth Company. As his documentarist, she knew that she had a paucity of material following that campaign, but Loken had kept himself to himself in the past few months.
'Kyril, Mersadie,’ said Loken, marching past them towards his arming chamber. 'It is good to see you both,’
'I am glad to be here, Garviel,’ said Sindermann. The primary iterator was an old man, and Mersadie was sure he had aged a great deal in the year since the fire that had nearly killed him in the Archive Halls of the Vengeful Spirit. Very glad. Mersadie was kind enough to bring me. I have had a spell of exerВtion recently, and I am not as fit as once I was. Time's winged chariot draws near,’ A quote?' asked Loken. A fragment,’ replied Sindermann. 'I haven't seen much of either of you recently,’ observed Loken, smiling down at her. 'Have I been replaced by a more interesting subject?'
'Not at all,’ she replied, 'but it is becoming more and more difficult for us to move around the ship. The edict from Maloghurst, you must have heard of it,’
'I have,’ agreed Loken, lifting a piece of armour and opening a tin of his ubiquitous lapping powВder, 'though I haven't studied the particulars,’
The smell of the powder reminded Mersadie of happier times in this room, recording the tales of great triumphs and wondrous sights, but she cast off such thoughts of nostalgia.
'We are restricted to our own quarters and the Retreat. We need permission to be anywhere else,’
'Permission from whom?' asked Loken.
She shrugged. 'I'm not sure. The edict speaks of submitting requests to the Office of the Lupercal's Court, but no one's been able to get any kind of response from whatever that is,’
That must be frustrating,' observed Loken and Mer-sadie felt her anger rise at such an obvious statement.
'Well of course it is! We can't record the Great Crusade if we can't interact with its warriors. We can barely even see them, let alone talk to them.'
'You made it here,’ Loken pointed out.
'Well, yes. Following you around has taught me how to keep a low profile, Captain Loken. It helps that you train on your own now.'
Mersadie caught the hurt look in Loken's eye and instantly regretted her words. In previous times, Loken could often be found sparring with fellow officers, the smirking Sedirae, whose flinty dead eyes reminded Mersadie of an ocean predator, Nero Vipus or his Mournival brother, Tarik Torgaddon, but Loken fought alone now. By choice or by design, she did not know.
'Anyway,’ continued Mersadie, 'it's getting bad for us. No one's speaking to us. We don't know what's going on any more,’
'We're on a war footing,’ said Loken, putting down his armour and looking her straight in the eye. 'The fleet is heading for a rendezvous. We're joining up with Astartes from the other Legions. It'll be a complex campaign. Perhaps the Warmas-ter is just taking precautions,’
'No, Garviel,’ said Sindermann, 'it's more than just that, and I know you well enough to know that you don't believe that either,’
'Really?' snarled Loken. РўРѕР№ think you know me that well?'
'Well enough, Garviel,’ nodded Sindermann, 'well enough. They're cracking down on us, cracking down hard. Not so everyone can see it, but it's hapВpening. You know it too,’ 'Do I?'
'Ignace Karkasy,’ said Mersadie. Loken's face crumpled and he looked away, unable to hide the grief he felt for the dead Karkasy, the irascible poet who had been under his protecВtion. Ignace Karkasy had been nothing but trouble and inconvenience, but he had also been a man who had dared to speak out and tell the unpalatВable truths that needed to be told.
They say he killed himself,’ continued Sindermann, unwilling to let Loken's grief dissuade him from his course, but I've never known a man more convinced that the galaxy needed to hear what he had to say He was angry at the massacre on the embarkation deck and he wrote about it. He was angry with a lot of things, and he wasn't afraid to speak of them. Now he is dead, and he's not the only one,’ 'Not the only one?' asked Loken. 'Who else?' 'Petronella Vivar, that insufferable documentarist woman. They say she got closer to the Warmaster than anyone, and now she's gone too, and I don't think it was back to Terra,’
'I remember her, but you are on thin ice, Kynl.
You need to be very clear what you are suggesting,’
Sindermann did not flinch from Loken's gaze and
said, 'I believe that those who oppose the will of
the Warmaster are being killed,’
The iterator was a frail man, but Mersadie had never been more proud to know him as he stood unbending before a warrior of the Astartes and told him something he didn't want to hear.
Sindermann paused, giving Loken ample time to refute his claims and remind them all that the Emperor had chosen Horus as the Warmaster because he alone could be trusted to uphold the Imperial Truth. Homs was the man to whom every Son of Horns had pledged his life a hundred times over.
But Loken said nothing and Mersadie's heart sank.
'I have read of it more times than I can rememВber,’ continued Sindermann. 'The Uranan Chronicles, for example. The first thing those tyrants did was to murder those who spoke out against their tyranny. The Overlords of the Yndonesic Dark Age did the same thing. Mark my words, the Age of Strife was made possible when the doubting voices fell silent, and now it is hapВpening here,’
'You have always taught temperance, Kyril,’ said Loken, 'weighing up arguments and never leaping past them into guesswork. We're at war and we have plenty of enemies already without you seeking to find new ones. It will be very dangerous for you and you may not like what you find. I do not wish to see you come to any harm, either of you,’
'Ha! Now you lecture me, Garviel,’ sighed SinderВmann. 'So much has changed. You're not just a warrior any more, are you?'
'And you are not just an iterator?'
'No, I suppose not,’ nodded Sindermann. An iterВator promulgates the Imperial Truth, does he not? He does not pick holes in it and spread rumours. But Karkasy is dead, and there are… other things,’
'What things?' asked Loken. You mean Keeler?'
'Perhaps,’ said Sindermann, shaking his head. 'I don't know, but I feel she is part of it,’
'Part of what?'
'You heard what happened in the Archive ChamВber?'
With Euphrati? Yes, there was a fire and she was badly hurt. She ended up in a coma,’
'I was there,’ said Sindermann.
'Kyril,’ said Mersadie, a note of warning in her voice.
'Please, Mersadie,’ said Sindermann. 'I know what I saw,’
'What did you see?' asked Loken. 'Lies,’ replied Sindermann, his voice hushed. 'Lies made real: a creature, something from the warp. Somehow Keeler and I brought it through the gates of the Empyrean with the Book of Lorgar. My own damn fault, too. It was… it was sorcery, the one thing that all these years I've been preaching is a lie, but it was real and standing before me as surely as I stand before you now. It should have killed us, but Euphrati stood against it and lived,’
'How?' asked Loken.
That's the part where I run out of rational explaВnations, Garviel,’ shrugged Sindermann.
'Well, what do you think happened?'
Sindermann exchanged a glance with Mersadie and she willed him not to say anything more, but the venerable iterator continued. 'When you destroyed poor Jubal, it was with your guns, but Euphrati was unarmed. All she had was her faith: her faith in the Emperor. I… I think it was the light of the Emperor that cast the horror back to the warp,’
Hearing Kyril Sindermann talk of faith and the light of the Emperor was too much for Mersadie.
'But Kyril,' she said, 'there must be another explaВnation. Even what happened to Jubal wasn't beyond physical possibilities. The Warmaster himВself told Loken that the thing that took Jubal was some kind of xeno creature from the warp. I've lisВtened to you teach about how minds have been twisted by magic and superstition and all the things that blind us to reality. That's what the Imperial Truth is. I can't believe that the Iterator Kyril SinВdermann doesn't believe the Imperial Truth any more.'
'Believe, my dear?' said Sindermann, smiling bleakly and shaking his head. 'Maybe belief is the biggest lie. In ages past, the earliest philosophers tried to explain the stars in the sky and the world around them. One of them conceived of the notion that the universe was mounted on giant crystal spheres controlled by a giant machine, which explained the movements of the heavens. He was laughed at and told that such a machine would be
so huge and noisy that everyone would hear it. He simply replied that we are born with that noise all around us, and that we are so used to hearing it that we cannot hear it at all,’
Mersadie sat beside the old man and wrapped her arms around him, surprised to find that he was shivering and his eyes were wet with tears.
'I'm starting to hear it, Garviel,’ said Sindermann, his voice quavering. 'I can hear the music of the spheres,’
Mersadie watched Loken's face as he stared at SinВdermann, seeing the quality of intelligence and integrity Sindermann had recognised in him. The Astartes had been taught that superstition was the death of the Empire and only the Imperial Truth was a reality worth fighting for.
Now, before her very eyes, that was unravelling.
Yarvarus was killed,’ said Loken at last, 'deliberВately, by one of our bolts,’
'Hektor Varvarus? The Army commander?' asked Mersadie. 'I thought that was the Auretians?'
'No,’ said Loken, 'it was one of ours,’
'Why?' she asked.
'He wanted us… I don't know… hauled before a court martial, brought to task for the… killings on the embarkation deck. Maloghurst wouldn't agree. Varvarus wouldn't back down and now he is dead,’
'Then it's true,’ sighed Sindermann. 'The naysayers are being silenced,’
'There are still a few of us left,’ said Loken, quiet steel in his voice.
Then we do something about it, Garviel,’ said Sindermann. 'We must find out what has been brought into the Legion and stop it. We can fight it, Loken. We have you, we have the truth and there is no reason why we cannot-'
The sound that cut off Sindermann's voice was the door to the practice deck slamming open, folВlowed by heavy metal-on-metal footsteps. Mersadie knew it was an Astartes even before the impossibly huge shadow fell over her. She turned to see the cursive form of Maloghurst behind her, robed in a cream tunic edged in sea green trim. The Warmas-ter's equerry, Maloghurst was known as 'the Twisted', as much for his labyrinthine mind as the horrible injuries that had broken his body and left him grotesquely malformed.
His face was thunder and anger seemed to bleed from him.
'Loken,' he said, 'these are civilians.'
'Kyril Sindermann and Mersadie Oliton are offiВcial rememberers of the Great Crusade and I can vouch for them,' said Loken, standing to face MalВoghurst as an equal.
Maloghurst spoke with Horus's authority and Mersadie marvelled at what it must take to stand up to such a man.
'Perhaps you are unaware of the Warmaster's edict, captain,’ said Maloghurst, the pleasant neuВtrality of his tone completely at odds with the tension that crackled between the two Astartes. 'These clerks and notaries have caused enough
trouble; you of all people should understand that. There are to be no distractions, Loken, and no exceptions,’
Loken stood face-to-face with Maloghurst and for one sickening moment, Mersadie thought he was about to strike the equerry.
'We are all doing the work of the Great Crusade, Mai,’ said Loken tightly. 'Without these men and women, it cannot be completed,’
'Civilians do not fight, captain, they only quesВtion and complain. They can record everything they desire once the war has been won and they can spread the Imperial Truth once we have conquered a population that needs to hear it. Until then, they are not a part of this Crusade,’
'No, Maloghurst,’ said Loken. You're wrong and you know it. The Emperor did not create the pri-marchs and the Legions so they could fight on in ignorance. He did not set out to conquer the galaxy just for it to become another dictatorship,’
The Emperor,’ said Maloghurst, gesturing towards the door, 'is a long way from here,’
A dozen soldiers marched into the training halls and Mersadie recognised uniforms of the Imperial Army, but saw that their badges of unit and rank had been removed. With a start, she also recognised one face – the icy, golden-eyed features of Petronella Vivar's bodyguard. She recalled that his name was Maggard, and was amazed at the sheer size of the man, his physique bulky and muscled beyond that of the army soldiers who accompanied
him. The exposed flesh of his muscles bore freshly healing scars and his face displayed a nascent giganВtism similar to Loken's. He stood out amongst the uniformed Army soldiers, and his presence only lent credence to Sindermann's wild theory that Petronella Vivar's disappearance had nothing to do with her returning to Terra.
'Take the iterator and the remembrancer back to their quarters,’ said Maloghurst. 'Post guards and ensure that there are no more breaches.'
Maggard nodded and stepped forwards. Mersadie tried to avoid him, but he was quick and strong, grabbing her by the scruff of her neck and hauling her towards the door. Sindermann stood of his own accord and allowed himself to be led away by the other soldiers.
Maloghurst stood between Loken and the door. If Loken wanted to stop Maggard and his men, he would have to go through Maloghurst.
'Captain Loken,’ called Sindermann as he was marched off the practice deck, 'if you wish to understand more, read the Chronicles of Ursh again. There you will find illumination,’
Mersadie tried to look back. She could see Loken beyond Maloghurst's robed form, looking like a caged animal ready to attack.
The door slammed shut, and Mersadie stopped struggling as Maggard led her and Sindermann back towards their quarters.
TWO
Perfection
Iterator
What we do best
Perfection. The dead greenskins were a testament to it. Deep Orbital DS191 had been conquered in a matchless display of combat, fields of fire overlapВping like dancers' fans, squads charging in to slaughter the orks that the guns could not finish. Squad by squad, room by room, the Emperor's Children had killed their way through the xenos holding the space station with all the handsome perfection of combat that Fulgrim had taught his Legion.
As the warriors of his company despatched any surviving greenskins, Saul Tarvitz removed his helВmet and immediately recoiled at the stench. The greenskins had inhabited the orbital for some time and it showed. Fungal growths pulsed on the dark metal struts of the main control centre and crude
shrines of weapons, armour and tribal fetishes were piled against the command posts. Above him, the transparent dome of the control centre looked onto the void of space.
The Callinedes system, a collection of Imperial worlds under attack by the greenskins was visible amid the froth of stars. Capturing the orbital back from the orks was the first stage in the Imperial relief of Callinedes, and the Emperor's Children and Iron Hands Legions would soon be storming into the enemy strongholds on Callinedes IV.
"What a stink,’ said a voice behind Tarvitz, and he turned to see Captain Lucius, the finest swordsman of the Emperor's Children. His compatriot's armour was spattered black and his elegant sword still crackled with the blood sizzling on its blue-hot blade. 'Damned animals, they don't have the sense to roll over and die when you kill them.'
Lucius's face had once been perfectly flawless, an echo of Fulgrim's Legion itself, but now, after one too many jibes about how he looked more like a pampered boy than a warrior and the influence of Serena d'Angelus, Lucius had started to acquire scars, each one uniform and straight in a perfect grid across his face. No enemy blade had etched them into his face, for Lucius was far too sublime a warrior to allow a mere enemy to mark his features.
They're tough, I'll give them that,’ agreed Tarvitz.
They may be tough, but there's no elegance to their fighting,’ said Lucius. There's no sport in killing them,’
You sound disappointed,’
'Well of course I am. Aren't you?' asked Lucius, jabbing his sword through a dead greenskin and carving a curved pattern on its back. 'How can we achieve ultimate perfection with such poor speciВmens to better ourselves against?'
'Don't underestimate the greenskins,’ said Tarvitz. These animals invaded a compliant world and slaughtered all the troops we left to defend it. They have spaceships and weapons we don't understand, and they attack as if war is some kind of religion to them,’
He turned over the closest corpse – a massive brute with skin as tough as gnarled bark, its violent red eyes open and its undershot maw still grimacВing with rage. Only the spread of entrails beneath suggested it was dead at all. Tarvitz could almost feel the jarring of his broadsword as he had plunged it through the creature's midriff and its tremendous strength as it had tried to force him onto his knees.
You talk about them as if we need to understand them before we can kill them. They're just animals,’ said Lucius with a sardonic laugh. You think about things too much. That's always been your problem, Saul, and it's why you'll never reach the dizzying heights I will achieve. Come on, just revel in the kill,’
Tarvitz opened his mouth to respond, but he kept his thoughts to himself as Lord Commander Eidolon strode into the control centre
'Fine work, Emperor's Children!' shouted Eidolon.
As one of Fulgrim's chosen, Eidolon had the honВour of being within the tight circle of officers who surrounded the primarch and represented the Legion's finest artistry of war. Although it was not bred into him to dislike a fellow Astartes, Tarvitz had little respect for Eidolon. His arrogance did not befit a warrior of the Emperor's Children and the antagonism between them had only grown on the fields of Murder in the war against the megarach-nids.
Despite Tarvitz's reservations, Eidolon carried a powerful natural authority about him, accentuated by magnificent armour with such an overabunВdance of gilding that the purple colours of the Legion were barely visible. 'The vermin didn't know what hit them!'
The Emperor's Children cheered in response. It had been a classic victory for the Legion: hard, fast and perfect.
The greenskins had been doomed from the start.
'Make ready,’ shouted Eidolon, 'to receive your primarch.'
The cargo decks of the deep orbital were rapidly cleared of the greenskin dead by the Legion's menials for a portion of the Callinedes battle force to assemble. Tarvitz felt his pulse race at the thought of setting eyes on his beloved primarch once more. It had been too long since the Legion had fought alongside their leader. Hundreds of
Emperor's Children in perfectly dressed ranks stood to attention, a magnificent army in purple and gold.
As magnificent as they were, they were but a poor imitation of the incredible warrior who was father to them all.
The primarch of the Emperor's Children was awe-inspiring, his face pale and sculpted, framed by a flowing mane of albino-white hair. His very presВence was intoxicating and Tarvitz felt a fierce pride fill him at the sight of this incredible, wondrous warrior. Created to echo a facet of war, Fulgrim's art was the pursuit of perfection through battle and he sought it as diligently as an imagist strove for perВfection through his picts. One shoulder of his golden armour was worked into a sweeping eagle's wing, the symbol of the Emperor's Children, and the symbolism was a clear statement of Legion pride.
The eagle was the Emperor's personal symbol, and he had granted the Emperor's Children alone the right to bear that same heraldry, symbolically proclaiming Fulgrim's warriors as his most adored Legion. Fulgrim wore a golden-hilted sword at his hip, said to have been a gift from the Warmaster himself, a clear sign of the bond of brotherhood between them.
The officers of the primarch's inner circle flanked him – Lord Commander Eidolon, Apothecary Fabius, Chaplain Charmosian and the massive dreadnought body of Ancient Rylanor. Even these
heroes of the Legion were dwarfed by Fulgrim's physical size and his sheer charisma.
A line of heralds, chosen from among the young initiates who were soon to complete their training as Emperor's Children, fanned out in front of Ful-grim, playing a blaring fanfare on their golden trumpets to announce the arrival of the most perВfect warrior in the galaxy. A thunderous roar of applause swelled from the assembled Emperor's Children as they welcomed their primarch back to his Legion.
Fulgrim waited graciously for the applause to die down. More than anything, Tarvitz aspired to be that awesome golden figure in front of them, though he knew he had already been designated as a line officer and nothing more. But Fulgrim's very presence filled him with the promise that he could be so much better if he was only given the chance. His pride in his Legion's prowess caught light as Fulgrim looked over the assembled warriors, and the primarch's dark eyes shone as he acknowledged each and every one of them.
'My brothers,’ called Fulgrim, his voice lilting and golden, 'this day you have shown the accursed greenskin what it means to stand against the ChilВdren of the Emperor!'
More applause rolled around the cargo decks, but Fulgrim spoke over it, his voice easily cutting through the clamour of his warriors.
'Commander Eidolon has wrought you into a weapon against which the greenskin had no
defence. Perfection, strength, resolve: these qualiВties are the cutting edge of this Legion and you have shown them all here today. This orbital is in ImpeВrial hands once more, as are the others the greenskins had occupied in the futile hope of fendВing off our invasion.
The time has come to press home this attack against the greenskins and liberate the Callinedes system. My brother primarch, Ferrus Manus of the Iron Hands and I shall see to it that not a single alien stands upon land claimed in the name of the Crusade.'
Expectation was heavy in the air as the Legion waited for the order that would send them into batВtle with their primarch.
'But most of you, my brothers, will not be there,’ said Fulgrim. The crushing disappointment Tarvitz felt was palpable, for the Legion had been sent to the Callinedes system with the assumption that it would lend its full strength to the destruction of the invading xenos.
'The Legion will be divided,’ continued Fulgrim, raising his hands to stem the cries of woe and lamentation that his words provoked. 'I will lead a small force to join Ferrus Manus and his Iron Hands at Callinedes IV. The rest of the Legion will rendezvous with the Warmaster's 63 rd Expedition at the Isstvan system. These are the orders of the Warmaster and of your primarch. Lord CommanВder Eidolon will lead you to Isstvan, and he will act in my stead until I can join you once more,’
Tarvitz glanced at Lucius, unable to read the expression on the swordsman's face at the news of their new orders. Conflicting emotions warred within Tarvitz: aching loss to be parted from his pri-march once more, and excited anticipation at the thought of fighting alongside his comrades in the Sons of Horus.
'Commander, if you please,’ said Fulgrim, gesturВing Eidolon to step forwards.
Eidolon nodded and said, 'The Warmaster has called upon us to aid his Legion in battle once more. He recognises our skills and we welcome this chance to prove our superiority. We are to halt a rebellion in the Isstvan system, but we are not to fight alone. As well as his own Legion, the WarmasВter has seen fit to deploy the Death Guard and World Eaters,’
A muttered gasp spread around the cargo bay at the mention of such brutal Legions.
Eidolon chuckled. 'I see some of you remember fighting alongside our brother Astartes. We all know what a grim and artless business war becomes in the hands of such men, so I say this is the perfect opportunity to show the Warmaster how the Emperor's chosen fight,’
The Legion cheered once more, and Tarvitz knew that whenever the Emperor's Children had a chance to prove their skill and artistry, especially to the other Legions, they took it. Fulgrim had turned pride into a virtue, and it drove each warrior of his Legion to heights of excellence that no other could match.
Torgaddon had called it arrogance and on the surВface of Murder Tarvitz had tried to dissuade him of that notion, but hearing the boastful cries of the Emperor's Children around him, he wasn't sure that his friend had been wrong after all.
'The Warmaster has requested our presence immediately,’ shouted Eidolon through the cheerВing. 'Although Isstvan is not far distant, the conditions in the warp have become more diffiВcult, so we must make all haste. The strike cruiser Andronius will leave for Isstvan in four hours. When we arrive, it will be as ambassadors for our Legion, and when the battle is done the WarmasВter will have witnessed war at its most magnificent,’
Eidolon saluted and Fulgrim led the applause before turning and taking his leave.
Tarvitz was stunned. To commit such a force of Astartes was rare and he knew that whatever foe they would face on Isstvan must be mighty indeed. Even the thrill of excitement he felt at this opporВtunity to prove themselves before the Warmaster was tempered by a sudden, nagging sense of unease.
'Four Legions?' asked Lucius, echoing his own thoughts as the squads fell out to make ready for the journey to join the 63rd Expedition. 'For one system? That's absurd!'
'Careful Lucius, you veer close to arrogance,’ Tarvitz pointed out. 'Are you questioning the War-master's decision?'
'Questioning, no,’ said Lucius defensively, 'but come on, even you have to admit it's a sledgehamВmer to crack a nut,’
'Possibly,’ conceded Tarvitz, 'but for the Isstvan system to rebel, it must have been compliant at one stage,’
'What's your point?'
'My point, Lucius, is that the Crusade was supВposed to be pushing ever outwards, conquering the galaxy in the name of the Emperor. Instead it is turning back on itself to patch up the cracks. I can only assume that the Warmaster wants to make some kind of grand gesture so show his enemies what rebellion means,’
'Ungrateful bastards,’ spat Lucius. 'Once we're done with Isstvan they'll beg us to take them back!'
'With four Legions sent against them,’ replied Tarvitz, 'I don't think there'll be many Isstvanians left for us to take back,’
'Come, Saul,’ said Lucius walking ahead of him, 'did you lose your taste for battle against the green-skins?'
A taste for battle? Tarvitz had never considered such an idea. He had always fought because he wanted to become more than he was, to strive for perfection in all things. For longer than he could remember he had devoted himself to the task of emulating the warriors of the Legion who were more gifted and more worthy than he. He knew his station within the Legion, but knowing one's staВtion was the first step to bettering it.
Watching Lucius's arrogant swagger, Tarvitz was reminded of how much his fellow captain loved battle. Lucius loved it without shame or apology, seeing it as the best way to express himself, weaving between his enemies and cutting a path of bloody ruin through them with his flashing sword. 'It just concerns me,’ said Tarvitz. 'What does?' asked Lucius, turning back to face him. Tarvitz could see the hastily masked exasperaВtion on the swordsman's face. He had seen that expression more and more on Lucius's scarred feaВtures recently, and it saddened him to know that the swordsman's ego and rampant ambition to rise within the ranks of the Emperor's Children would be the undoing of their friendship.
'That the Crusade has to repair itself at all. ComВpliance used to be the end of it. Not now,’
'Don't worry,’ smiled Lucius. 'Once a few of these rebel worlds get a decent killing this will all be over and the Crusade will go on,’
Rebel worlds… Whoever thought to hear such a phrase?
Tarvitz said nothing as he considered the sheer numbers of Astartes that would be converging on the Isstvan system. Hundreds of Astartes had fought on Deep Orbital DS191, but more than ten thouВsand Emperor's Children made up the Legion, most of whom would be journeying to Isstvan III. That in itself was enough for several war zones. The thought of four Legions arrayed in battle sent shivВers up Tarvitz's spine.
What would be left of Isstvan when four Legions had marched through the system? Could any depths of rebellion really justify that?
'I just want victory,’ said Tarvitz, the words soundВing hollow, even to him.
Lucius laughed, but Tarvitz couldn't tell if it was in agreement or mockery.
Being confined to his quarters was the most exquisite torture for Kyril Sindermann. Without the library of books he was used to consulting in Archive Chamber Three he felt quite adrift. His own library, though extensive by any normal standards, was a paltry thing next to the arcana that had been destroyed in the fire.
How many priceless, irreplaceable tomes had been lost in the wake of the warp beast he and Euphrati had conjured from the pages of the Book ofLorgar?
It did not bear thinking about and he wondered how much the future would condemn them for the knowledge that had been lost there. He had already filled thousands of pages with those fragments he could remember from the books he had consulted. Most of it was fragmentary and disjointed. He knew that the task of recalling everything he had read was doomed to failure, but he could no more conceive of giving up than he could stop his heart from beatВing.
His gift and the gift of the Crusade to the ages yet to come was the accumulated wisdom of the
galaxy's greatest thinkers and warriors. With the broad shoulders of such knowledge to stand upon, who knew what dizzying heights of enlightenment the Imperium might reach?
His pen scratched across the page, recalling the philosophies of the Hellenic writers and their early debates on the nature of divinity. No doubt many would think it pointless to transcribe the writings of those long dead, but Sindermann knew that to ignore the past was to doom the future to repeat it.
The text he wrote spoke of the ineffable inscrutability of false gods, and he knew that such mysteries were closer to the surface than he cared to admit. The things he had seen and read since Sixty-Three Nineteen had stretched his scepticism to the point where he could no longer deny the truth of what was plainly before him and which Euphrati Keeler had been trying to tell them all.
Gods existed and, in the case of the Emperor, moved amongst them…
He paused for a moment as the full weight of that thought wrapped itself around him like a comfortВing blanket. The warmth and ease such simple acceptance gave him was like a panacea for all the ills that had troubled him this last year, and he smiled as his pen idly scratched across the page before him without his conscious thought.
Sindermann started as he realised that the pen was moving across the page of its own volition. He looked down to see what was being written.
She needs you.
Cold fear gripped him, but even as it rose, it was soothed and a comforting state of love and trust filled him. Images filled his head unbidden: the Warmaster strong and powerful in his newly forged suit of black plate armour, the amber eye glowing like a coal from the furnace. Claws slid from the Warmaster's gauntlets and an evil red glow built from his gorget, illuminating his face with a ghastly daemonic light.
'No…' breathed Sindermann, feeling a great and unspeakable horror fill him at this terrible vision, but no sooner had this image filled his head than it was replaced by one of Euphrati Keeler lying supine on her medicae bed. Terrified thoughts were banВished at the sight of her and Sindermann felt his love for this beautiful woman fill him as a pure and wondrous light.
Even as he smiled in rapture, the vision darkened and yellowed talons slid into view, tearing at the image of Euphrati.
Sindermann screamed in sudden premonition.
Once again he looked at the words on the page, marvelling at their desperate simplicity.
She needs you.
Someone was sending him a message.
The saint was in danger.
Coordinating a Legion's assets – its Astartes, its spacecraft, staff and accompanying Imperial Army units – was a truly Herculean task. ManagВing to coordinate the arrival of four Legions in
the same place at the same time was an impossiВble task: impossible for anyone but the Warmaster.
The Vengeful Spirit, its long flat prow like the tip of a spear, slid from the warp in a kaleidoscopic disВplay of pyrotechnics, lightning raking along its sides as the powerful warp-integrity fields took the full force of re-entry. In the interstellar distance, the closest star of the Isstvan system glinted, cold and hard against the blackness. The Eye of Horus glared from the top of the ship's prow, the entire vessel having been refitted following the victory against the Technocracy, the bone-white of the Luna Wolves replaced by the metallic grey-green of the Sons of Horus.
Within moments, another ship broke through, tearing its way into real space with the brutal funcВtionality of its Legion. Where the Vengeful Spirit had a deadly grace to it, the newcomer was brutish and ugly, its hull a drab gunmetal-grey, its only decoraВtion, a single brazen skull on its prow. The vessel was the Endurance, capital ship of the Death Guard fleet accompanying the Warmaster, and a flotilla of smaller cruisers and escorts flew in its wake. AH were the same unembellished gunmetal, for nothВing in Mortarion's Legion bore any more adornment than was necessary.
Several hours later the powerful, stabbing form of the Conqueror broke through to join the Warmaster. Shimmering with the white and blue colours of the World Eaters, the Conqueror was Angron's flagship,
and its blunt muscular form echoed the legendary ferocity of the World Eaters' primarch.
Finally, the Andronius, at the head of the Emperor's Children fleet, joined the growing Isst-van strike force. The vessel itself was resplendent in purple and gold, more like a flying palace than a ship of war. Its appearance was deceptive however, for the gun decks bristled with weapons manned by well-drilled menials who lived and died to serve Fulgrim's Legion. The Andronius, for all its decoraВtive folly, was a compact, lethal weapon of war.
The Great Crusade had rarely seen a fleet of such power assembled in one place.
Until now, only the Emperor had commanded such a force, but his place was on distant Terra, and these Legions answered only to the Warmaster.
So it was that four Legions gathered and turned their eyes towards the Isstvan system.
The klaxons announcing the Vengeful Spirit's transВlation back to real space were the spur to action that Kyril Sindermann had been waiting for. MopВping his brow with an already moist handkerchief, he pushed himself to his feet and made his way to the shutter of his quarters.
He took a deep, calming breath as the shutter rose and he was confronted by the hostile stares of two army soldiers, their starched uniforms insignia free and anonymous.
'Can I help you, sir?' asked a tall man with a cold, unhelpful expression.
'Yes,’ said Sindermann, his voice perfectly moduВlated to convey his non-threatening affability. 'I need to travel to the medicae deck.' You don't look sick,’ said the second guard. Sindermann chuckled, reaching out to touch the man's arm like a kindly grandfather. 'No, it's not me, my boy, it's a friend of mine. She's rather ill and I promised that I would look in on her,’
'Sorry,’ said the first guard, in a tone that sugВgested he was anything but. 'We've got orders from the Astartes not to let anyone off this deck,’
'I see, I see,’ sighed Sindermann, letting a tear trickle from the corner of his eye. 'I don't want to be an inconvenience, my boys, but my friend, well, she's like a daughter to me, you see. She is very dear to me and you would be doing an old man a very real favour if you could just let me see her,’
'I don't think so, sir,’ said the guard, but SinderВmann could already detect a softening in his tone and pushed a little harder.
'She has… she has… not long left to her, and I was told by Maloghurst himself that I would be allowed to see her before… before the end,’
Using Maloghurst's name was a gamble, but it was a calculated gamble. These men were unlikely to have any formal channel to contact the Warmas-ter's equerry,, but if they decided to check, he would be unmasked.
Sindermann kept his voice low and soft as he played the grandfatherly role, utilising every trick he had learned as an iterator – the precise timbre of
his voice, the frailty of his posture, keeping eye conВtact and empathy with his audience.
'Do you have children, my boy?' asked Sinder-mann, reaching out clasp the guard's arm.
'Yes, sir, I do.'
Then you understand why I have to see her,' pressed Sindermann, risking the more direct approach and hoping that he had judged these men correctly.
'You're just going to the medicae deck?' asked the guard.
'No further,’ promised Sindermann. 'I just need some time to say my goodbyes to her. That's all. Please?'
The guards exchanged glances and Sindermann fought to keep the smile from his face as he knew he had them. The first soldier nodded and they moved aside to let him past.
'Just the medicae deck, old man,’ said the guard, scrawling on a chit that would allow him passage through the ship to the medicae deck and back. 'If you're not back in your quarters in a couple of hours, I'll be dragging you back here myself,’
Sindermann nodded, taking the proffered chit and shaking both men warmly by the hand.
'You're good soldiers, boys,’ he said, his voice dripping with gratitude. 'Good soldiers. I'll be sure to tell Maloghurst of your compassion for an old man,’
He turned quickly so that they didn't see the relief on his face and hurried away down the corridor
towards the Medicae deck. The companionways echoed with their emptiness as he made his way through the twisting maze of the ship, an idiot smile plastered across his puffing features. Entire worlds had fallen under the spell of his oratory and here he was smiling about duping two simple-minded guards to let him out of his room. How the mighty had fallen.
'Is there any more news on Varvarus?' asked Loken as he and Torgaddon walked through the Museum of Conquest on their way to the Lupercal's Court.
Torgaddon shook his head. The shells were too fragmented. Apothecary Vaddon wouldn't be able to make a match even if we found the weapon that fired the shot. It was one of ours, but that's all we know,’
The museum was brimming with artefacts won from the Legion's many victories, for the Luna Wolves had brought a score of worlds into compliВance. A grand statue dominating one wall recalled the days when the Emperor and Horus had fought side by side in the first campaigns of the Great CruВsade. The Emperor, sword in hand, fought off slender, masked aliens while Horus, back to back with his father, blazed away with a boltgun.
Beyond the statue, Loken recognised a display of bladed insectoid limbs, a blend of metallic and bioВlogical flesh wrested from the megarachnids on Murder. Only a few of these trophies had been won after Horus's investiture as Warmaster, the majority having been taken before the Luna Wolves had
been renamed the Sons of Horus in honour of the Warmaster's accomplishments.
The remembrancers are next,’ said Loken. 'They are asking too many questions. Some of them may already have been murdered.'
'Who?'
'Ignace and Petronella Vivar,’
'Karkasy,' said Torgaddon. 'Damn, I'd heard he killed himself, but I should have known they'd find a way to do it. The warrior lodge was talking about silencing him, Abaddon in particular. They didn't call it murder, although Abaddon seemed to think it was the same as killing an enemy in war. That's when I broke with the lodge,’
'Did they say how it was to be done?'
Torgaddon shook his head. 'No, just that it needed to be done,’
'It won't be long before all this is out in the open,’ promised Loken. 'The lodge doesn't move under a veil of secrecy any more and soon there will be a reckoning,’
'Then what do we do?'
Loken looked away from his friend, at the high arch that led from the museum and into the Luper-cal's Court.
'I don't know,’ he said, waving Torgaddon to silence as he caught sight of a figure moving behind one of the furthest cabinets.
'What's up?' asked Torgaddon.
'I'm not sure,’ said Loken, moving between disВplay cabinets of gleaming swords captured from an
ancient feudal kingdom and strange alien weapons taken from the many species the Legion had destroyed. The figure he had seen was another Astartes, and Loken recognised the colours of the World Eaters upon his armour.
Loken and Torgaddon rounded the corner of a tall, walnut-framed cabinet, seeing a scarred Astartes warrior peering intently at an immense battle-glaive that had been wrested from the hands of a xenos praetorian by the Warmaster himself.
'Welcome to the Vengeful Spirit,' said Loken.
The World Eater looked up from the weapon and turned to face them. His face was deeply bronzed, long and noble, contrasting with the bone white and blue of his Legion's colours.
'Greetings,’ he said, bringing his forearm across his armoured chest in a martial salute.
'Kharn, Eighth Assault Company of the World Eaters,’
'Loken of the Tenth,’ replied Loken. Torgaddon of the Second,’ nodded Torgaddon. 'Impressive, this,’ said Kharn, looking around him.
Thank you,’ said Loken. The Warmaster always believed we should remember our enemies. If we forget them, we shall never learn,’
He pointed at the weapon Kharn had been admiring. %fe have the preserved corpse of the creaВture that carried this weapon somewhere around here. It's the size of a tank,’
'Angron has his share of trophies too,’ said Kharn, 'but only from foes that deserve to be remembered.'
'Should we not remember them all?'
'No,' said Kharn firmly. There is nothing to gain from knowing your enemy. The only thing that matters is that they are to be destroyed. Everything else is just a distraction.'
'Spoken like a true World Eater,’ said Torgaddon.
Kharn looked up from the weapon with an amused sneer. 'You seek to provoke me, Captain Torgaddon, but I already know what other Legions think of the World Eaters,’
'We were on Aureus,’ said Loken. 'You are butchВers,’
Kharn smiled. 'Hah! Honesty is rare these days, Captain Loken. Yes, we are and we are proud because we are good at it. My primarch is not ashamed of what he does best, so neither am I,’
'I trust you're here for the conclave?' asked Loken, wishing to change the subject.
Yes. I serve as my primarch's equerry,’
Torgaddon raised an eyebrow. Tough job,’
'Sometimes,’ admitted Kharn. 'Angron cares little for diplomacy,’
'The Warmaster believes it is important,’
'So I see, but all Legions do things differently,’ laughed Kharn, clapping Loken on his shoulder guard. As one honest man to another, your own Legion has as many detractors as admirers. Too damn superior, the lot of you,’
The Warmaster has high standards,’ said Loken.
'So does Angron, I assure you,’ said Kharn, and Loken was surprised to hear a note of weariness in Kharn's voice. The Emperor knew that sometimes the best course of action is to let the World Eaters do what we do best. The Warmaster knows it too; otherВwise we would not be here. It may be distasteful to you, captain, but if it were not for warriors like mine, the Great Crusade would have foundered long ago,’ There we must agree to disagree,’ said Loken. 'I could not do what you do,’
Kharn shook his head. You're a warrior of the Astartes, captain. If you had to kill every living thing in a city to ensure victory, you would do it. We must always be prepared to go further than our enemy. All the Legions know it; the World Eaters just preach it openly,’ 'Let us hope it never comes to that,’ 'Do not pin too much on that hope. I hear tell that Isstvan III will be difficult to break,’ 'What do you know of it?' asked Torgaddon. Kharn shrugged. 'Nothing specific, just rumours really; something religious, they say, witches and warlocks, skies turning red and monsters from the warp, all the usual hyperbole. Not that the Sons of Horus would believe such things,’
The galaxy is a complicated place,' replied Loken carefully. 'We don't know the half of what goes on in it,’
'I'm beginning to wonder myself,’ agreed Kharn. 'It's changing,’ continued Loken, 'the galaxy, and the Crusade with it,’
'Yes,’ said Kharn with relish. 'It is,’
Loken was about to ask Kharn what he meant when the doors to the Lupercal's Court swung open.
'Evidently the Warmaster's conclave will begin soon,’ said Kharn, bowing before them both. 'It is time for me to rejoin my primarch,’
'And we must join the Warmaster,’ said Loken. 'Perhaps we will see you on Isstvan III?'
'Perhaps,’ nodded Kharn, walking off between the spoils of a hundred wars. 'If there's anything left of Isstvan HI when the World Eaters finish with it,’
THREE
Horus enthroned
The saint is in danger
Isstvan III
Lupercal's Court was a new addition to the VengeВful Spirit. Previously the Warmaster had held briefings and planning sessions on the strategium, but it had been decided that he needed somewhere grander to hold court. Designed by Peeter Egon Momus, it had been artfully constructed to place the Warmaster in a setting more suited to his posiВtion as the leader of the Great Crusade and present him as the first among equals to his fellow comВmanders.
Vast banners hung from the sides of the room, most belonging to the Legion's battle companies, though there were a few that Loken didn't recogВnise. He saw one with a throne of skulls set against a tower of brass rising from a blood-red sea and another with an eight-pointed black star shining in
a white sky. The meaning of such obscure symbols confounded Loken, but he assumed that they repВresented the warrior lodge that had become integral to the Legion.
Greater than all the majesty designed by the architect designate, was the Primarch of the Sons of Horns himself, enthroned before them on a great basalt throne. Abaddon and Aximand stood to one side. Both warriors were armoured, Abaddon in the glossy black of the Justaerin, Aximand in his pale green plate.
The two officers glared at Loken and Torgaddon –the enmity that had grown between them during the Auretian campaign too great to hide any more. As he met Abaddon's flinty gaze, Loken felt great sadness as the realised that the glorious ideal of the Mournival was finally and irrevocably dead. None of them spoke as Loken and Torgaddon took their places on the other side of the Warmaster.
Loken had stood with these warriors and sworn an oath by the light of a reflected moon on a planet the inhabitants called Terra, to counsel the War-master and preserve the soul of the Legion.
That felt like a very long time ago.
'Loken, Torgaddon,’ said Horus, and even after all that had happened, Loken felt honoured to be so addressed. 'Your role here is simply to observe and remind our Legion brothers of the solidity of our cause. Do you understand?'
Yes, my Warmaster,’ said Torgaddon.
'Loken?' asked the Warmaster.
Loken nodded and took his allotted position. Yes, Warmaster,’
\\e felt the Warmaster's penetrating eyes boring into him, but kept his gaze fixed firmly on the arches that led into the Lupercal's Court as the doors beneath one of them slid open. The tramp of feet sounded and a blood-red angel of death emerged from the shadows.
Loken had seen the primarch of the World Eaters before, but was still awed by his monstrous, physiВcal presence. Angron was huge, easily as tall as the Warmaster, but also massively broad, with wide hulking shoulders like some enormous beast of burden. His face was scarred and violent, his eyes buried deep in folds of angry red scar tissue. Ugly cortical implants jutted from his scalp, connected to the collar of his armour by ribbed cables. The primarch's armour was ancient and bronze, like that of a feral world god, with heavy metal plates over mail and twin chainaxes strapped to his back. Loken had heard that Angron had once been a slave before the Emperor had found him, and that his masters had forced the implants on him to turn him into a psychotic killer for their fighting pits. Looking at Angron, Loken could well believe it. Angron's equerry, Kharn, flanked the terrifying primarch, his expression neutral where his master's was thunder.
'Horus!' said Angron, his voice rough and brutal. 'I see the Warmaster welcomes his brother like a king. Am I your subject now?'
Angron,’ replied Horns unperturbed, 'it is good that you could join us.'
'And miss all this prettiness? Not for the world,' said Angron, his voice loaded with the threat of a smouldering volcano.
A second delegation arrived through another of the arches, arrayed in the purple and gold of the Emperor's Children. Led by Eidolon in all his magВnificence, a squad of Astartes with glittering swords marched alongside the lord commander, their batВtle gear as ornate as their leader's.
'Warmaster, the Lord Fulgrim sends his regards,’ stated Eidolon formally and with great humility. Loken saw that Eidolon had learned the ways of a practiced diplomat since he had last spoken to the Warmaster. 'He assures you that his task is well under way and that he will join us soon. I speak for him and command the Legion in his stead.'
Loken's eyes darted from Angron to Eidolon, seeing the obvious antipathy between the two Legions. The Emperor's Children and the World Eaters were as difВferent as could be – Angron's Legion fought and won through raw aggression, while the Emperor's ChilВdren had perfected the art of picking an enemy force apart and destroying it a piece at a time.
'Lord Angron,' said Eidolon with a bow, 'it is an honour.'
Angron did not deign to reply and Loken saw Eidolon stiffen at this insult, but any immediate confrontation was averted as the final delegation to the Warmaster entered the Lupercal's Court.
Mortarion, Primarch of the Death Guard was backed by a unit of warriors armoured in the dull gleam of unpainted Terminator plate. Mortarion's armour was also bare, with the brass skull of the Death Guard on one shoulder guard. His pallid face and scalp were hairless and pocked, his mouth and throat hidden by a heavy collar that hissed spurts of grey steam as he breathed.
A Death Guard captain marched beside the priВmarch, and Loken recognised him with a smile. Captain Nathanial Garro had fought alongside the Sons of Horns in the days when they had been known as the Luna Wolves. The Terran-born capВtain had won many friends within the Warmaster's Legion for his unshakeable code of honour and his straightforward, honest manner.
The Death Guard warrior caught Loken's gaze and gave a perfunctory nod of greeting.
'With our brother Mortarion,’ said Horus, 'we are complete,’
The Warmaster stood and descended from the elevated throne to the centre of the court as the lights dimmed and a glowing globe appeared above him, hovering just below the ceiling.
This,’ said Horus, 'is Isstvan III, courtesy of servitor-manned stellar cartography drones. Remember it well, for history will be made here,’
Jonah Aruken paused in his labours and slipped a small hip flask from beneath his uniform jacket as he checked for anyone watching. The hangar bay
was bustling with activity, as it always seemed to be these days, but no one was paying him any attenВtion. The days when an Imperator Titan being made ready for war would pause even the most jaded war maker in his tracks were long past, for there were few here who had not seen the mighty form of the Dies Irae being furnished for battle scores of times already.
He took a hit from the flask and looked up at the old girl.
The Titan's hull was scored and dented with wounds the Mechanicum servitors had not yet had time to patch and Jonah patted the thick plates of her leg armour affectionately.
"Well, old girl,’ he said. "You've certainly seen some action, but I still love you,’
He smiled at the thought of a man being in love with a machine, but he'd love anything that had saved his life as often as the Dies Irae had. Through the fires of uncounted battles, they had fought together and as much as Titus Cassar denied it, Jonah knew that there was a mighty heart and soul at the core of this glorious war machine.
Jonah took another drink from his flask as his expression turned sour thinking of Titus and his damned sermons. Titus said he felt the light of the Emperor within him, but Jonah didn't feel much of anything any more.
As much as he wanted to believe in what Titus was preaching, he just couldn't let go of the sceptiВcal core at the centre of his being. To believe in
things that weren't there, that couldn't be seen or felt? Titus called it faith, but Jonah was a man who needed to believe in what was real, what could be touched and experienced.
Princeps Turnet would discharge him from the crew of the Dies Irae if he knew he had attended prayer meetings back on Davin, and the thought of spending the rest of the Crusade as a menial, denied forever the thrill of commanding the finest war machine ever to come from the forges of Mars sent a cold shiver down his spine.
Every few days, Titus would ask him to come to another prayer meeting and the times he said yes, they would furtively make their way to some forВsaken part of the ship to listen to passages read from the Lectitio Divinitatus. Each time he would sweat the journey back for fear of discovery and the court martial that would no doubt follow.
Jonah had been a career Titan crewman since the day he had first set foot aboard his inaugural postВing, a Warhound Titan called the Venator, and he knew that if it came down to a choice, he would choose the Dies Irae over the Lectitio Divinitatus every time.
But still, the thought that Titus might be right continued to nag at him.
He leaned back against the Titan's leg, sliding down until he was sitting on his haunches with his knees drawn up to his chest.
'Faith,’ he whispered, 'you can't earn it and you can't buy it. Where then do I find it?'
'Well,’ said a voice behind and above him, 'you can start by putting that flask away and coming with me.'
Jonah looked up and saw Titus Cassar, resplenВdent as always in his parade-ready uniform, standing in the arched entrance to the Titan's leg bastions.
'Titus,’ said Jonah, hurriedly stuffing the hip flask back into his jacket. 'What's up?'
'We have to go,’ said Titus urgently. 'The saint is in danger,’
Maggard stalked along the shadowed compan-ionways of the Vengeful Spirit at a brisk pace, marching at double time with the vigour of a man on his way to a welcome rendezvous. His hulking form had been steadily growing over the last few months, as though he were afflicted with some hideous form of rapid gigantism.
But the procedures the Warmaster's apothecaries were performing on his frame were anything but hideous. His body was changing growing and transВforming beyond anything the crude surgeries of House Carpinus had ever managed. Already he could feel the new organs within him reshaping his flesh and bone into something greater than he could ever have imagined, and this was just the beginning. . His Kirlian blade was unsheathed, shimmering with a strange glow in the dim light of the corridor. He wore fresh white robes, his enlarging physique already too massive for his armour. Legion artificers
stood ready to reshape it once his flesh had settled into its new form, and he missed its reassuring solidity enclosing him.
Like him, his armour would be born anew, forged into something worthy of the Warmaster and his chosen warriors. Maggard knew he was not yet ready for such inclusion, but he had already carved himself a niche within the Sons of Horus. He walked where the Astartes could not, acted where they could not be seen to act and spilled blood where they needed to be seen as peacemakers.
It required a special kind of man to do such work, efficiently and conscience-free, and Maggard was perfectly suited to his new role. He had killed hunВdreds of people at the behest of House Carpinus and many more than that before he had been capВtured by them, but these had been poor, messy killings compared to the death he now carried.
He remembered the sense of magnificent beginВnings when Maloghurst had tasked him with the death of Ignace Karkasy
Maggard had jammed the barrel of his pistol beneath the poet's quivering jaw and blown his brains out over the roof of his cramped room before letting the generously fleshed body crash to the floor in a flurry of bloody papers.
Why Maloghurst had required Karkasy's death did not concern Maggard. The equerry spoke with the voice of Horus and Maggard had pledged his undying loyalty to the Warmaster on the battlefield of Davin when he had offered him his sword.
Later, whether in reward or as part of his ongoing designs, the Warmaster had killed his former misВtress, Petronella Vivar, and for that, Maggard was forever in his debt.
Whatever the Warmaster desired, Maggard would move heaven or hell to see it done.
Now he had been ordered to do something wonВdrous.
Now he was going to kill a saint.
Sindermann beat his middle finger against his chin in a nervous tattoo as he tried to look as if he belonged in this part of the ship. Deck crew in orange jumpsuits and ordnance officers in yellow jackets threaded past him as he awaited his accomplices in this endeavour. He clutched the chit the guard had given him tightly, as though it were some kind of talisman that would protect him if someone challenged him.
'Come on, come on,’ he whispered. Where are you?'
It had been a risk contacting Titus Cassar, but he had no one else to turn to. Mersadie did not believe in the Lectitio Divinitatus, and in truth he wasn't sure he did yet, but he knew that whatever or whoВever had sent him the vision of Euphrati Keeler had meant him to act upon it. Likewise, Garviel Loken was out of the question, for it was certain that his movements would not escape notice.
'Iterator,’ hissed a voice from beside him and SinВdermann almost cried aloud in surprise. Titus Cassar stood beside him, an earnest expression creasing his
slender face. Another man stood behind him, simiВlarly uniformed in the dark blue of a Titan crewman. Titus,’ breathed Sindermann in relief. 'I wasn't sure you'd be able to come,’
'We won't have long before Princeps Turnet notices we are not at our posts, but your communiВcation said the saint was in danger,’ 'She is,’ confirmed Sindermann, 'grave danger,’ 'How do you know?' asked the second man. Cassar's brow twisted in annoyance. Tm sorry, Kyril, this is Jonah Aruken, my fellow Moderati on the Dies Irae. He is one of us,’
'I just know,’ said Sindermann. 'I saw… I don't know… a vision of her lying on her bed and I just knew that someone intended her harm,’
'A vision,’ breathed Cassar. 'Truly you are one of the chosen of the Emperor,’
'No, no,’ hissed Sindermann. 'I'm really not. Now come on, we don't have time for this, we have to go now,’ 'Where?' asked Jonah Aruken. The medicae deck,’ said Sindermann, holding up his chit. We have to get to the medicae deck,’
The surface of the shimmering globe above Horus resolved into continents and oceans, overlaid with the traceries of geophysical features: plains, forests, seas, mountain ranges and cities.
Horus held up his arms, as if supporting the globe from below like some titan from the ancient myths of old Earth.
'This is Isstvan III,’ he repeated, 'a world brought into compliance thirteen years ago by the 27th expeditionary force of our brother Corax,’
'And he wasn't up to the job?' snorted Angron.
Horus shot Angron a dangerous look. There was some resistance, yes, but the last elements of the aggressive faction were destroyed by the Raven Guard at the Redarth Valley,’
The battle site flared red on the globe, nestled among a mountain range on one of Isstvan Ill's northern continents. The remembrancer order was not yet foisted upon us by the Council of Terra, but a substantial civilian contingent was left behind to begin integration with the Imperial Truth,’
'Are we to assume that the Truth didn't take?' asked Eidolon.
'Mortarion?' prompted Horus, gesturing to his brother primarch.
'Four months ago the Death Guard received a disВtress signal from Isstvan III,’ said Mortarion. 'It was weak and old. We only received it because one of our supply ships joining the fleet at Arcturan dropped out of the warp for repairs. Given the age of the signal and the time it took for it to be relayed to my command, it is likely that it was sent at least two years ago,’
What did it say?' asked Angron.
In reply, the holographic image of the globe unfolded into a large flat pane, like a pict-screen hovering in the air, black, with just a hint of
shadowy movement. A shape moved on the screen and Loken realised it was a face – a woman's face, orange-lit by a candle flame that provided the only light. She appeared to be in a small, stone walled chamber. Even over the poor quality of the signal, Loken could tell that the woman was terrified, her eyes wide and her breathing rapid and shallow. She gleamed with sweat.
'The insignia on her collar,’ said Torgaddon, 'is from the 27th Expedition,’
The woman adjusted the device she was using to record the image and sound flooded into the Lupercal's Court: crackling flames, distant yelling and gunfire.
'It's revolution,’ said the woman, her voice warped by static. 'Open revolt. These people, they have… rejected… they've rejected it all. We tried to integrate them, we thought the Warsingers were just some primitive… superstition, but it was much more, it was real. Praal has gone mad and the Warsingers are with him,’
The woman suddenly looked around at someВthing off-screen.
'No!' she screamed desperately and opened fire with a weapon previously held out of view. Violent muzzle flashes lit her and something indescribable flailed against the far wall as she emptied her weapon into it. 'They're closer. They know we're here and… I think I'm the last one,’
The woman turned back to the screen. 'It's madВness, complete madness down here. Please, I don't
think I'm going to get through this. Send someone, anyone, just… make this stop-'
A hideous, atonal keening sound blared from the pict screen. The woman grabbed her head, her screams drowned by the inhuman sound. The last frames jerked and fragmented, freeze framing through a series of gruesome images: blood in the woman's frenzied eye, a swirling mass of flesh and shattered stone, and a mouth locked open, blood on teeth.
Then blackness.
There have been no further communications from Isstvan III,’ concluded Mortarion, filling the silence that followed. 'The planet's astropaths have either been compromised or they are dead,’
The name "Praal" refers to Vardus Praal,’ said Horns, 'the governor left behind to command IsstВvan III in the name of the Imperium, ensure compliance and manage the dismantling of the traВditional religious structures that defined the planet's autochthonous society. If he is complicit in the rebellion on Isstvan III, as this recording sugВgests, then he is one of our objectives,’
Loken felt a shiver travel down his spine at the thought of once again facing a population whose Imperial official had turned traitor. He glanced over at Torgaddon and saw that the similarities with the Davin campaign were not lost on his comrade.
The holo swelled and returned to the image of Isstvan III. The cultural and religious capital of IsstВvan is here,’ said Horus as the image zoomed in on
one of the northern cities, which commanded a large hinterland at the foot of a colossal range of mountains.
'The Choral City. This is the source of the disВtress signal and the seat of Praal's command, a building known as the Precentor's Palace. MultiВple speartips will seize a number of strategic objectives, and with the city in our hands, Isstvan will be ours. The first assault will be a combined force made up of Astartes from all Legions with backup from the Titans of the Mechanicum and the Imperial Army. The rest of the planet will then be subjugated by whichever Imperial Army reinВforcements can reach us with the warp in its current state,’
Why not just bombard them?' asked Eidolon. The sudden silence that followed his question was deafening.
Loken waited for the Warmaster to reprimand Eidolon for daring to question one of his decisions, but Horus only nodded indulgently. 'Because these people are vermin, and when you stamp out verВmin from afar, some invariably survive. If we are to cut out the problem, we must get our hands dirty and destroy them in one fell swoop. It may not be as elegant as the Emperor's Children would wish, but elegance is not a priority for me, only swift vicВtory,’
'Of course,’ said Eidolon, shaking his head. To think that these fools should be so blind to the realВities of the galaxy,’
'Have no fear, lord commander,’ said Abaddon, descending to stand beside the Warmaster, 'they will be illuminated as to the error of their ways.'
Loken risked a sidelong glance at the first captain, surprised at the respect he heard in his voice. All the previous dealings between the Sons of Horus and Eidolon had led him to believe that Abaddon held the arrogant lord commander in contempt.
What had changed?
'Mortarion,' continued Horus. 'Your objective will be to engage the main force of the Choral City's army. If they are anything like they were when the Raven Guard fought them, they will be professional soldiers and will not break easily, even when conВfronted with Astartes,’
The holo zoomed in to show a map of the Choral City, a handsome conurbation with many and varied buildings that ranged from exquisite mansions and basilica to massive sprawls of housing and tangles of industrial complexes. Artfully formed boulevards and thoroughfares threaded a multi-levelled city of millions, most of whom appeared to be housed in sprawling residential districts, workshops and factories.
The western edge of the city was highlighted, focusing on the scar-like web of defensive trenches and bunkers along the city's outskirts. The opposite side of the Choral City butted up against the sheer cliffs of a mountain range – the natural defences efficiently shielding the city from a conventional land attack.
Unfortunately for the Choral City, the Warmaster clearly wasn't planning a conventional land attack. 'It appears that a sizeable armed force is manning these defences,' said Horus. 'It looks as if they have excellent fortifications and artillery. Many of these defences were added after compliance to protect the seat of Imperial governance on Isstvan, which means they're ours, and they will be strong. It will be ugly work engaging and destroying this force, and there is still much about the Choral City's milВitary we do not know,’
'I welcome this challenge, Warmaster,’ said MorВtarion. This is my Legion's natural battlefield,’
Another location lurched into focus, a spectacular conglomeration of arches and spires, with dozens of labyrinth-like wings and additions surrounding a magnificent central dome faced in polished stone The city's crowning glory, the structure looked like a jewelled brooch set into the twisted mass of the Choral City.
The Precentor's Palace,’ said Eidolon appreciaВtively.
'And your Legion will take it,’ said Horus, 'along with the World Eaters,’
Again, Loken caught Eidolon's glance at Angron, the lord commander unable to conceal the distaste he felt at the thought of fighting alongside such a barbaric Legion. If Angron was aware of Eidolon's scornful glance he gave no sign of it.
The palace is one of Praal's most likely locations,’ said Horus. 'Therefore, the palace is one of our
most important objectives. The palace must be taken, the Choral City's leadership destroyed, and Praal killed. He is a traitor, so I do not expect or wish him to be taken alive.'
Finally, the holo zoomed in on a curious mass of stonework some way east of the Precentor's Palace. To Loken's untutored eye, it looked like a collection of church spires or temples, sacred buildings heaped one on top of one another over the centuries.
'This is the Sirenhold and my Sons of Horus will lead the attack on it,' said Horus. 'Choral City's revolt appears to be religious in nature and the Sirenhold was the spiritual heart of the city. AccordВing to Corax's reports, this was the seat of the old pagan religion that was supposed to have been disВmantled. It is presumed that it still exists and that the leadership of that religion will be found here. This is another likely location for Vardus Praal, so again I do not require prisoners, only destruction.' For the first time, Loken saw the battlefield he would soon be fighting on. The Sirenhold looked like difficult ground to take: massive, complicated structures creating a confusing multi-levelled warВren with plenty of places to hide. Dangerous ground.
That was why the Warmaster had sent his own Legion to take it. He knew they could do it.
The holo zoomed out again to a view of the planet itself.
'Preliminary operations will involve the destrucВtion of the monitoring stations on the seventh
planet of Isstvan Extremis,’ said Horus. 'When the rebels are blind the invasion of Isstvan III will comВmence. The units chosen to lead the first wave will deploy by drop-pod and gunship, with a second wave ready in reserve. I trust you all understand what is required of your Legions,’
'I only have one question, Warmaster,’ said Angron.
'Speak,’ said Horus.
Why do we plan this attack with such precision when a single, massive strike will do the job just as well?'
You object to my plans, Angron?' Horus asked carefully.
'Of course I object,’ spat Angron. We have four Legions, Titans and starships at our disposal, and this is just one city. We should hit it with everything we have and slaughter them in the streets. Then we will see how many on this planet have the stomach to rebel. But no, you would have us kill them one by one and pick off their leaders as if we are here to preserve this world. Rebellion is in the people, Horus. Kill the people and the rebellion ends,’
'Lord Angron,’ said Eidolon reasonably, 'you speak out of turn-'
'Hold your tongue in the presence of your betters,’ snarled Angron. 'I know what you Emperor's ChilВdren think of us, but you mistake our directness for stupidity. Speak to me again without my consent and I will kill you,’
'Angron!'
Horus's voice cut through the building tension and the primarch of the World Eaters turned his murderous attention away from Eidolon.
'You place little value on the lives of your World Eaters,’ said Horus, 'and you believe in the way of war you have made your own, but that does not place you beyond my authority. I am the Warmas-ter, the commander of everyone and everything that falls under the aegis of the Great Crusade. Your Legion will deploy according to the orders I have given you. Is that clear?'
Angron nodded curtly as Horus turned to Eidolon. 'Lord Commander Eidolon, you are not among equals here, and your presence in this war council is dependent upon my good graces, which will be rapidly worn thin should you conВduct yourself as if Fulgrim was here to nursemaid you.'
Eidolon rapidly recovered his composure. 'Of course, my Warmaster, I meant no disrespect. I shall ensure that my Legion is prepared for the assault on Isstvan Extremis and the capture of the Precentor's Palace.'
Horus switched his gaze to Angron, who grunted in assent.
'The World Eaters will be ready, Warmaster,’ said Kharn.
Then this conclave is at an end,’ said Horus. 'Return to your Legions and make ready for war,’
The delegations filed out, Kharn speaking quietly with Angron and Eidolon adopting a swagger as if
to compensate for his dressing down. Loken thought he saw a gleam of amusement in Mortar-ion's eyes as he left with Garro and his Terminators in tow.
Horus turned to Abaddon and said, 'Have a stormbird prepared to convey me to the Conqueror. Angron must be illuminated as to the proper conВduct of this endeavour,’
Horus turned and made his way from the Luper-cal's court with Abaddon and Aximand following behind him without so much as a backwards glance at Loken and Torgaddon.
That was educational,’ said Torgaddon when they were alone.
Loken smiled wearily. 'I could feel you willing Angron to strike Eidolon,’
Torgaddon laughed, remembering when he and Eidolon had almost come to blows when they had first met on the surface of Murder.
'If only we could join the Warmaster on the ConВqueror! said Torgaddon. 'Now that would be something worth seeing. Horus illuminating Angron. What would they talk about?' What indeed?' agreed Loken. There was so much Loken didn't know, but as he pondered his unhappy ignorance, he remembered the last thing Kyril Sindermann had shouted to him as he was led away by Maloghurst's soldiers.
Tarik, we have a battle to prepare for, so I want you to get everyone ready. It's going to be a hard fight on Isstvan III,’
'I know,' said Torgaddon. The Sirenhold. What a bloody shambles. This is what happens when you give people a god to believe in.'
'Get Vipus up to speed as well. If we're attacking the Sirenhold, I want Locasta with us.'
'Of course,’ nodded Torgaddon. 'Sometimes I think you and Nero are the only people I can trust any more. What are you going to be doing?'
'I have some reading to catch up on,' said Loken.
FOUR
Sacrifice
A single moment
Keep her safe
Wherever Erebus walked, shadows followed in his wake. Flickering whisperers were his constant comВpanions, invisible creatures that lurked just beyond sight and ghosted in his shadow. The whisperers flitted from Erebus and gathered in the shadowed corners of the chamber, a stone-walled lodge built in the image of the temple room of the Delphos where Akshub had cut his throat.
Deep in the heart of the Vengeful Spirit, the lodge temple was low, close and hot, lit by a crackling fire that burned in a pit in the middle of the room. Flames threw leaping shapes across the walls. 'My Warmaster,' said Erebus. 'We are prepared.' 'Good,' replied the Warmaster. 'It has cost us a great deal to reach this point, Erebus. For all our sakes it had better be worth it, but mostly for yours.'
'It will be, Warmaster,’ assured Erebus, paying no heed to the threat. 'Our allies are keen to finally speak to you directly'
Erebus stooped to stare into the fire, the flames reflecting from his shaven, tattooed head and in his armour, recently painted in the deep scarlet colours now adopted by the Word Bearers Legion. As confiВdent as he sounded, he allowed himself a moment of pause. Dealing with creatures from the warp was never straightforward, and should he fail to meet the Warmaster's expectations then his life would be forfeit.
The Warmaster's presence filled the lodge, armoured as he was in a magnificent suit of obsidВian Terminator armour gifted to him by the Fabricator General himself. Sent from Mars to cement the alliance between Horns and the Mechanicum of Mars, the armour echoed the colours of the elite Justaerin, but it far surpassed them in ornamentation and power. The amber eye upon the breastplate stared from the armour's torso and shoulder plates, and on one hand Horns sported a monstrous gauntlet with deadly blades for fingers.
Erebus lifted a book from beside the fire and rose to his feet, reverently turning the ancient pages until he came to a complex illustration of interВlocking symbols.
"We are ready. I can begin once the sacrifice is made.'
Horus nodded and said, 'Adept, join us,’
Moments later, the bent and robed form of Adept Regulus entered the warrior lodge. The representaВtive of the Mechanicum was almost completely mechanised, as was common among the higher echelons of his order. Beneath his robes his body was fashioned from gleaming bronze, steel and cables. Only his face showed, if it could be called a face, with large augmetic eyepieces and a vocabula-tor unit that allowed the adept to communicate.
Regulus led the ghostly figure of Ing Mae Sing, her steps fearful and her hands flitting, as if swatВting at a swarm of flies.
This is unorthodox,' said Regulus, his voice like steel wire on the nerves.
'Adept,’ said the Warmaster. 'You are here as the representative of the Mechanicum. The priests of Mars are essential to the Crusade and they must be a part of the new order. You have already pledged your strength to me and now it is time you witВnessed the price of that bargain,’
'Warmaster,’ began Regulus, 'I am yours to comВmand,’
Horus nodded and said, 'Erebus, continue,’ Erebus stepped past the Warmaster and directed his gaze towards Ing Mae Sing. Though the astropath was blind, she recoiled as she felt his eyes roaming across her flesh. She backed against one wall, trying to shrink away from him, but he grasped her arm in a crushing grip and dragged her towards the fire. 'She is powerful,’ said Erebus. 'I can taste her,’
'She is my best,’ said Horus.
That is why it has to be her,’ said Erebus. The symbolism is as important as the power. A sacrifice is not a sacrifice if it is not valued by the giver,’
'No, please,’ cried Ing Mae Sing, twisting in his grip as she realised the import of the Word Bearer's statement.
Horus stepped forwards and tenderly took hold of the astropath's chin, halting her struggles and tilting her head upwards so that she would have looked upon his face had she but eyes to see.
'You betrayed me, Mistress Sing,’ said Horus.
Ing Mae Sing whimpered, nonsensical protests spilling from her terrified lips. She tried to shake her head, but Horus held her firm and said, There is no point in denying it. I already know everything. After you told me of Euphrati Keeler, you sent a warning to someone, didn't you? Tell me who it was and I will let you live. Try to resist and your deatb will be more agonising than you can possibly imagine,’
'No,’ whispered Ing Mae Sing. 'I am already dead. I know this, so kill me and have done with it,’ 'You will not tell me what I wish to know?' There is no point,’ gasped Ing Mae Sing. You will kill me whether I tell you or not. You may have the power to conceal your lies, but your serpent does not.' Erebus watched as Horus nodded slowly to himВself, as if reluctandy reaching a decision.
Then we have no more to say to one another,’ said Horus sadly, drawing back his arm.
He rammed his clawed gauntlet through her chest, the blades tearing through her heart and lungs and ripping from her back in a spray of red. Erebus nodded towards the fire and the Warmas-ter held the corpse above the pit, letting Ing Mae Sing's blood drizzle into the flames.
The emotions of her death flooded the lodge as the blood hissed in the fire, hot, raw and powerful: fear, pain and the horror of betrayal.
Erebus knelt and scratched designs on the floor, copying them exactly from the diagrams in the book: a star with eight points that was orbited by three circles, a stylised skull and the cuneiform runes of Colchis. You have done this before,’ said Horus. 'Many times,’ said Erebus, nodding towards the fire. 'I speak here with my primarch's voice, and it is a voice our allies respect,’
They are not allies yet,’ said Horus, lowering his arm and letting the body of Ing Mae Sing slide from the claws of his gauntlet.
Erebus shrugged and began chanting words from the Book ofLorgar, his voice dark and guttural as he called upon the gods of the warp to send their emissary.
Despite the brightness of the fire, the lodge darkВened and Erebus felt the temperature fall, a chill wind gusting from somewhere unseen and unknown. It carried the dust of ages past and the ruin of empires in its every breath, and ageless eterВnity was borne upon the unnatural zephyr.
'Is this supposed to happen?' asked Regulus.
Erebus smiled and nodded without answering as the air grew icy, the whisperers gibbering in unreaВsoning fear as they felt the arrival of something ancient and terrible. Shadows gathered in the corВners of the room, although no light shone to cast them and a racing whip of malicious laughter spiВralled around the chamber.
Regulus spun on hissing bearings as he sought to identify the source of the sounds, his ocular implants whirring as they struggled to find focus in the darkness. Frost gathered on the struts and pipes high above them.
Horus stood unmoving as the shadows of the chamber hissed and spat, a chorus of voices that came from everywhere and nowhere.
'You are the one your kind calls Warmaster?'
Erebus nodded as Horus looked over at him.
'I am,’ said Horus. 'Warmaster of the Great CruВsade. To whom do I speak?'
'I am Sarr'kell,' said the voice. 'Lord of the Shadows!'
The three of them made their way swiftly through the decks of the Vengeful Spirit, heading down towards the tiled environment of the medicae deck. Sindermann kept the pace as brisk as he could, his breath sharp and painful as they hurried to save the saint from whatever dark fate awaited her.
'What do you expect to find when we reach the saint, iterator?' asked Jonah Aruken, his nervous hands fingering the catch on his pistol holster.
Sindermann thought of the small medicae cell where he and Mersadie Oliton had stood vigil over Euphrati and wondered that same thought.
'I don't know exactly,’ he said. 'I just know we have to help,’
'I just hope a frail old man and our pistols are up to the job,’
What do you mean?' asked Sindermann, as they descended a wide screw stair that led deeper into the ship.
'Well, I just wonder how you plan to fight the kind of danger that could threaten a saint. I mean, whatever it is must be pretty damn dangerous, yes?'
Sindermann paused in his descent, as much to catch his breath as to answer Aruken.
'Whoever sent me that warning obviously thinks that I can help,’ he said.
'And that's enough for you?' asked Aruken.
'Jonah, leave him alone,’ cautioned Titus Cassar.
'No, damn it, I won't,’ said Aruken. This is serious and we could get in real trouble. I mean, this Keeler woman, she's supposed to be all saintly, yes? Then why doesn't the power of the Emperor save her? Why does he need us?'
The Emperor works through His faithful serВvants, Jonah,’ explained Titus. 'It is not enough to simply believe and await divine intervention to sweep down from the heavens and set the world to rights. The Emperor has shown us the path and it is up to us to seize this chance to do His will.'
Sindermann watched the exchange between the two crewmen, his anxiety growing with every secВond that passed.
'I don't know if I can do this, Titus,’ said Aruken, 'not without some proof that we're doing the right thing,’
%Ve are, Jonah,’ pressed Titus. 'You must trust that the Emperor has a plan for you,’
'The Emperor may or may not have a plan for me, but I sure as hell do,’ snapped Aruken. 'I want comВmand of a Titan, and that's not going to happen if we get caught doing something stupid,’
'Please!' cut in Sindermann, his chest hurting with worry for the saint. 'We have to go! SomeВthing terrible is coming to harm her and we have to stop it. I can think of no more compelling an argument than that. I'm sorry, but you'll just have to trust me,’
Why should I?' asked Aruken. You've given me no reason to. I don't even know why I'm here,’
'Listen to me, Mister Aruken,’ said Sindermann earnestly. When you live as long and complex a life as I have, you learn that it always comes down to a single moment – a moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he really is. This is that moment, Mister Aruken. Will this be a moment you are proud to look back on or will it be one you will regret for the rest of your life?'
The two Titan crewmen shared a glance and evenВtually Aruken sighed and said, 'I need my head looked at for this, but all right, let's go save the day,’
A palpable sense of relief flooded through SinВdermann and the pain in his chest eased.
'I am proud of you, Mr Aruken,’ he said, 'and I thank you, your aid is most welcome,’
Thank me when we save this saint of yours,’ said Дшкеп, setting off down the stairs.
They followed the stairs down, passing several decks until the symbol of intertwined serpents around a winged staff indicated they had arrived at the medicae deck. It had been some weeks since the last casualties had been brought aboard the Vengeful Spirit and the sterile, gleaming wilderness of tiled walls and brushed steel cabinets felt empty, a warren of soulless glass rooms and laboВratories.
'This way,’ said Sindermann, setting off into the confusing maze of corridors, the way familiar to him after all the times he had visited the comatose imagist. Cassar and Aruken followed him, keeping a watchful eye out for anyone who might challenge their presence. At last they reached a nondescript white door and SinderВmann said, 'This is it,’ Aruken said, 'Better let us go first, old man,’ Sindermann nodded and backed away from the door, pressing his hands over his ears as the two Titan crewmen unholstered their pistols. Aruken crouched low beside the door and nodded to CasВsar, who pressed the release panel.
The door slid aside and Aruken spun through it with his pistol extended.
Cassar was a second behind him, his pistol trackВing left and right for targets, and Sinderman awaited the deafening flurry of pistol shots.
When none came he dared to open his eyes and uncover his ears. He didn't know whether to be glad or deathly afraid that they were too late.
He turned and looked through the door, seeing the familiar clean and well maintained medicae cell he had visited many times. Euphrati lay like a mannequin on the bed, her skin like alabaster and her face pinched and sunken. A pair of drips fed her fluids and a small, bleeping machine drew spiking lines on a green display unit beside her.
Aside from her immobility she looked just as she had the last time he had laid eyes on her.
'Just as well we rushed,’ snapped Aruken. 'Looks like we were just in time.'
'I think you might be right,’ said Sindermann, as he saw the golden-eyed figure of Maggard come into view at the far end of the corridor with his sword unsheathed.
'You are known to us, Warmaster,' said Sarr'Kell, his voice leaping around the room like a capricious whisper. 'It is said that you are the one who can deliver us. Is that true?'
'Perhaps,’ replied Horus, apparently unperturbed by the strangeness of his unseen interlocutor. 'My brother Lorgar assures me that your masters can give me the power to achieve victory,’
Victory,' whispered Sarr'kell. 'An almost meaningВless word in the scale of the cosmos, but yes, we have much power to offer you. No army will stand before you, no power of mortal man will lay you low and no ambiВtion will he denied you if you swear yourself to us.'
'Just words,’ said Horus. 'Show me something tan-gible,’
'Power,' hissed Sarr'Kell, the sound rippling around Horus like a slithering snake. 'The warpbrings power. There is nothing beyond the reach of the gods of the warp!
'Gods?' replied Horus. 'You waste your time throwing such words around, they do not impress me. I already know that your "gods" need my help, so speak plainly or we are done here,’
'Your Emperor,' replied Sarr'Kell, and for a fleeting moment, Erebus detected a trace of unease in the creature's voice. Such entities were unused to the defiance of a mortal, even one as mighty as a pri-march. 'He meddles in matters he does not understand. On the world you call Terra, his grand designs cause a storm in the warp that tears it asunder from within. We care nothing for your realm, you know this. It is anathВema to us. We offer power that can help you take his place, Warmaster. Our aid will see you destroy your foes and take you to the very gates of the Emperor's palace. We can deliver the galaxy to you. All we care for is that his works cease and that you take his place.'
The unseen voice spoke in sibilant tones, slick and persuasive, but Erebus could see that Horus was unmoved. 'And what of this power? Do you
understand the magnitude of this task? The galaxy will be divided, brother will fight brother. The Emperor will have his Legions and the Imperial Army, the Custodian Guard, the Sisters of Silence. Can you be the equal of such a foe?'
'The gods of the warp are masters of the primal forces of all reality. As your Emperor creates, the warp decays and destroys. As he brings us to battle, we shall melt away, and as he gathers his strength, we shall strike from the shadows. The victory of the gods is as inevitable as the passing of time and the mortality of flesh. Do the gods not rule an entire universe hidden from your eyes, Warmaster? Have they not made the warp dark at their command?'
'Your gods did this? Why? You have blinded my Legions!'
'Necessity, Warmaster. The darkness blinds the Emperor too, blinds him to our plans and yours. The Emperor thinks himself the master of the warp and he would seek to know his enemies by it, but see how swiftly we can confound him? You will have passage through the warp as you need it, Warmaster, for as we bring darkness, so we can bring light.'
'The Emperor remains ignorant of all that has transpired?'
'Completely,' sighed Sarr'Kell, 'and so, Warmaster, you see the power we can give you. All that remains is for your word, and the pact will be made!
Horus said nothing, as if weighing up the choices before him, and Erebus could sense the growing impatience of the warp creature.
At last the Warmaster spoke again. 'Soon I shall unleash my Legions against the worlds of the Isst-• van system. There I shall set my Legions upon the path of the new Crusade. There are matters that must be dealt with at Isstvan, and I will deal with them in my own way.'
Horus looked over at Erebus and said, When I am done with Isstvan, I will pledge my forces with those of your masters, but not until then. My Legions will go through the fire of Isstvan alone, for only then will they be tempered into my shining blade aimed at the Emperor's heart.'
The sibilant, roiling chill of Sarr'Kell's voice hissed as if he took mighty breaths.
'My masters accept,' he said at last. 'You have chosen well, Warmaster!
The chill wind that had carried the words of the warp entity blew again, stronger this time, its ageВless malevolence like the murder of innocence.
Its icy touch slid through Erebus and he drew a cold breath before the sensation faded and the unnatural darkness began to recede, the light of the fire once more illuminating the lodge temple.
The creature was gone and the void of its presence was an ache felt deep in the soul.
'Was it worth it, Warmaster?' asked Erebus, releasВing the pent up breath he had been holding.
Yes,' said Horus, glancing down at Ing Mae Sing's body. 'It was worth it.'
The Warmaster turned to Regulus and said, Adept, I wish the Fabricator General to be made
aware of this. I cannot contact him directly, so you will take a fast ship and make for Mars. If what this creature says is true, you will make good time. Kel-bor-Hal is to purge his order and make ready for its part in my new Crusade. Tell him that I shall conВtact him when the time comes and that I expect the Mechanicum to be united.'
'Of course, Warmaster. Your will be done,’
'Waste no time, adept. Go.'
Regulus turned to leave and Erebus said, 'We have waited a long time for this day, Lorgar will be exulВtant,’
'Lorgar has his own battles to fight, Erebus,’ replied Horns sharply. 'Should he fail at Calth, all this will be for nothing if Guilliman's Legion is allowed to intervene. Save your celebrations for when I sit upon the throne of Terra,’
Sindermann felt his heart lurch in his chest at the sight of Petronella's bodyguard coming towards them. The man's every step was like death approachВing and Sindermann cursed himself for having taken so long to get here. His tardiness had killed the saint and would probably see them all dead as well.
Jonah Aruken's eyes widened as he saw the masВsive form of the saint's killer approaching. He turned quickly and said, Titus, grab her. Now!'
What?' asked Cassar. 'She's hooked up to all these machines, we can't just-'
'Don't argue with me,’ hissed Aruken. 'Just do it, we've got company, bad company,’
Aruken turned back to Sindermann and hissed, Well, iterator? Is this that single moment you were talking about, where we find out who we really are? If it is, then I'm already regretting helping you,’
Sindermann couldn't reply. He saw Maggard notice them outside Euphrati's room and felt a cold, creeping horror as a slow smile spread across the man's features. ,’ am going to kill you, the smile said, slowly. 'Don't hurt her,’ he whispered, the words soundВing pathetic in his ears. 'Please…'
He wanted to run, to get far away from the evil smile that promised a silent, agonising death, but his legs were lead weights, rooted to the spot by some immense power that prevented him from moving so much as a muscle.
Jonah Aruken slid from the medicae cell, with Titus Cassar behind him, the recumbent form of Euphrati in his arms. Dripping tubes dangled from her arms and Sindermann found his gaze unacВcountably drawn to the droplets as they swelled at the ends of the plastic tubes before breaking free and plummeting to the deck to splash in crowns of saline.
Aruken held his pistol out before him, aimed at Maggard's head.
'Don't come any closer,’ he warned.
Maggard did not even slow down and that same deathly smile shone at Jonah Aruken.
With Euphrati still in his arms, Titus Cassar backed away from the relentlessly approaching killer.
'Come on, damn it,’ he hissed. 'Let's go!'
Aruken shoved Sindermann after Cassar and sudВdenly the spell of immobility that had held him rooted to the spot was broken. Maggard was less than ten paces from them and Sindermann knew that they could not hope to escape without bloodВshed.
'Shoot him,’ shouted Cassar.
'What?' asked Aruken, throwing his fellow crewВman a desperate glance.
'Shoot him,’ repeated Cassar. 'Kill him, before he kills us,’
Jonah Aruken tore his gaze back to the approachВing Maggard and nodded, pulling the trigger twice in quick succession. The noise was deafening and the corridor was filled with blinding light and careening echoes. Tiles shattered and exploded as Aruken's bullets cratered the wall behind where Maggard had been standing.
Sindermann cried out at the noise, backing away after Titus Cassar as Maggard spun out from the sunken doorway in which he had taken cover the instant before Aruken had fired. Maggard's pistol leapt to his hand and the barrel blazed with light as he fired three times.
Sindermann cried out, throwing up his arms and awaiting the awful pain of bullets tearing into his flesh, ripping through his internal organs and blowing bloody-rimmed craters in his back.
Nothing happened and Sindermann heard a cry of astonishment from Jonah Aruken, who had
likewise flinched at the thunderous noise of laggard's gun. He lowered his arms and his mouth fell open in amazement at the sight before him.
Maggard still stood there, his muscled arm still holding his wide barrelled pistol aimed squarely at them.
A frozen bloom of light expanded at an infinites-imally slow pace from the muzzle and Sindermann could see a pair of bullets held immobile in the air before them, only the glint of light on metal as they spiralled giving any sign that they were moving at all.
As he watched, the pointed nub of a brass bullet began to emerge from the barrel of Maggard's gun and Sindermann turned in bewilderment to Jonah Aruken.
The Titan crewman was as shocked as he was, his arms hanging limply at his side.
AVhat the hell is going on?' breathed Aruken.
'I d-don't know,’ stammered Sindermann, unable to tear his gaze from the frozen tableau standing in front of them. 'Maybe we're already dead,’
'No, iterator,’ said Cassar from behind them, 'it's a miracle,’
Sindermann turned, feeling as if his entire body was numb, only his heart hammering fit to break his chest. Titus Cassar stood at the end of the corridor, the saint held tightly to his chest. Where before Euphrati had lain supine, her eyes were now wide in terror, her n ght hand extended and the silver eagle that had been burned into her flesh glowing with a soft, inner light.
'Euphrati!' cried Sindermann, but no sooner had he given voice to her name than her eyes rolled back in their sockets and her hand dropped to her side He risked a glance back at Maggard, but the assassin was still frozen by whatever power had saved their lives.
Sindermann took a deep breath and made his way on unsteady legs to the end of the corridor. Euphrati lay with her head against Cassar's chest, as unmoving as she had been for the last year and he wanted to weep to see her so reduced.
He reached up and ran a hand through Euphrates hair, her skin hot to the touch.
'She saved us,’ said Cassar, his voice awed and humbled by what he had seen.
'I think you might be right, my dear boy,' said SinВdermann. 'I think you might be right.'
Jonah Aruken joined him, alternating between casting fearful looks at Maggard and Euphrati. He kept his pistol trained on Maggard and said, 'What do we do about him?'
Sindermann looked back at the monstrous assasВsin and said, 'Leave him. I will not have his death on the saint's hands. What kind of beginning would it be for the Lectitio Divinitatus if the saint's first act is to kill. If we are to found a new church in the name of the Emperor it will be one of forgiveВness, not bloodshed,’
'Are you sure?' asked Aruken. 'He will come after her again,’
'Then we will keep her safe from him,’ said CasВsar. 'The Lectitio Divinitatus has friends aboard the
Vengeful Spirit and we can hide her until she recovВers. Iterator, do you agree?'
Yes, that's what to do,’ nodded Sindermann, 'hide her. Keep her safe,’
FIVE
Dark Millennium
Warsinger
Loken had not set foot on the strategium for some time, the construction of the Lupercal's Court renВdering it largely without function. In any case, an unspoken order had filtered down from the lodge members that Torgaddon and Loken were no longer to stand alongside the Warmaster and act as the Legion's conscience.
The isolated strategium platform was suspended above the industrious hubbub of the vessel's bridge, and Loken leaned over the rail to watch the senior crew of the Vengeful Spirit going about the business of destroying Isstvan Extremis.
Warriors of the Death Guard and Emperor's ChilВdren were already in the theatre of war and the enemies of the Warmaster would even now be dying. The thought of not being there to share the
danger galled Loken and he wished he could be on that barren rock with his battle-brothers, especially since Torgaddon had told him that Saul Tarvitz was down there.
The last time the Sons of Horus and the Emperor's Children had met was during the war against the Technocracy and bonds of brotherhood had been reВestablished between the Legions, formally by the primarchs, and informally by their warriors.
He missed the times he had stood in the presence of his fellow warriors when the talk had been of campaigns past and yet to come. The shared camaВraderie of brotherhood was a comfort that was only realised once it was stripped away
He smiled wryly to himself, whispering, 'I even miss your tales of "better days", Iacton.'
Loken turned away from the bridge below and unfolded the piece of paper he had discovered inside the dust jacket of the Chronicles of Ursh.
Once again he read the words hurriedly written in Kyril Sindermann's distinctive spidery scrawl on the ragged page of a notebook.
Even the Warmaster may not deserve your trust. Look for the temple. It will he somewhere that was once the essence of the Crusade.
Remembering Sindermann's words as he had been forced from the training halls by Maloghurst, Loken had sought out the book from the burnt out stacks of Archive Chamber Three. Much of the archive was still in ruins from the fire that had
gutted the chamber and put Euphrati Keeler in a coma. Servitors and menials had attempted to save as many books as they could, and even though Loken was no reader, he was saddened by the loss of such a valuable repository of knowledge.
He had located The Chronicles ofUrsh with the barest minimum of effort, as if the book had been specifiВcally placed for him to find. Opening the cover, he realised that it had indeed been left there for him, as Sindermann's note slipped from its pages.
Loken wasn't sure exactly what he was looking for, and the idea of a temple aboard the Vengeful Spirit seemed laughable, but Sindermann had been deadly serious when he had implored Loken to seek out the book and his note.
It will be somewhere that was once the essence of the Crusade.
He looked up from the note and cast his eyes around the strategium: the raised platform where the Warmaster had delivered his briefings, the niches around the edge where Sons of Horus stood as an honour guard and the vaulted dome of dark steel. Banners hung along the curved wall, indisВtinct in the gloom, company banners of the Sons of Horus. He hammered his fist against his breastplate as he faced the banner of the Tenth.
If anywhere was once the essence of the Crusade it was the strategium.
The strategium was empty, and it was an emptiВness that spoke more of its neglect and its
obsolescence than simply the absence of people It had been abandoned and the ideals once hamВmered out here had been abandoned too, replaced with something else, something dark.
Loken stood in the centre of the strategium and felt an ache in his chest that was nothing to do with any physical sensation. It took him a moment to realise that there was something out of place here, something present that shouldn't be: a smell that he didn't recognise, faint but definitely hanging in the air.
At last he recognised the smell as incense, cloying, and carrying the familiar scent of hot, dry winds that brought sour fragrances of bitter blossoms. His genhanced senses could pick out the subtle aromas mixed into the incense, its scent stronger as he made his way through the strategium hoping to pinpoint its source. Where had he smelt this before?
He followed the bitter smell to the standard of the Seventh, Targhost's company. Had the lodge master flown the banner in some ritual ceremony of the warrior lodge?
No, the scent was too strong for it to be simply clinging to fabric. This was the aroma of burning incense. Loken pulled the banner of the Seventh away from the wall, and he was not surprised to find that, instead of the brushed steel of the strateВgium wall, there was the darkness of an opening cut into one of the many access passages that threaded the Vengeful Spirit.
Had this been here when the Mournival had gathered? He didn't think so.
Look for the temple, Sindermann had said, so Loken ducked beneath the banner and through the doorway, letting the banner fall into place behind him. The smell of incense was definitely here, and it had been burned recently, or was still burning.
Loken suddenly realised where he had smelled this aroma before and he gripped the hilt of his combat knife as he remembered the air of Davin, the scents that filled the yurts and seemed to linger in the air, even through rebreathers.
The passageway beyond was dark, but Loken's augmented eyesight cut through the gloom to reveal a short passageway, recently constructed, that led to an arched doorway with curved sigils etched into the ironwork surrounding it. Although it was simply a door, Loken felt an unutterable dread of what lay beyond it and for a moment he almost considered turning back.
He shook off such a cowardly notion and made his way forwards, feeling his unease grow with every step he took. The door was closed, a stylised skull mounted at eyelevel and Loken felt uncomfortable even acknowledging that it was there let alone lookВing at it. Something of its brutal form whispered to the killer in him, telling him of the joy of spilling blood and the relish to be taken in slaughter.
Loken tore his eyes from the leering skull and drew his knife, fighting the urge to plunge it into the flesh of anyone waiting behind the door.
He pushed it open and stepped inside.
The space within was large, a maintenance chamВber that had been had been cleared and refitted so as to resemble some underground stone chamber. Twin rows of stone benches faced the far wall, where meaningless symbols and words had been painted. Blank-eyed skulls hung from the ceiling, staring and grinning with bared teeth. They swayed gently as Loken passed them, thin tendrils of smoke rising from their eye sockets.
A low wooden table stood against the far wall. A shallow bowl carved into its surface contained flaky dark detritus that he could smell was dried blood. A thick book lay beside the depression.
Was this a temple? He remembered the bottles and glass flasks that had been scattered around the water fane beneath the Whisperheads.
This place and the fane on Sixty-Three Nineteen looked different, but they felt the same.
He heard a sudden rustle on the air, like whispers in his ear, and he spun around, his knife whipping out in front of him.
He was alone, yet the sense of someone whispering in his ear had been so real that he would have sworn on his life that another person had been standing right beside him. Loken took a breath and did a slow circuit of the room, his knife extended, on the defenВsive in case the mysterious whisperer revealed himself.
Bundles of torn material lay by the benches, and he made his way towards the table – the altar, he realised – upon which lay the book he had noticed earlier.
Its cover was leather, the surface cracked, old and blackened by fire.
Loken bent down to examine the book, flipping open the cover with the tip of his knife. The words written there were composed of an angular script, the letters written vertically on the page.
'Erebus,’ he said as he recognised the script as identical to that tattooed upon the skull of the Word Bearer. Could this be the Book of Lorgar that Kyril Sindermann had been raving about following the fire in the archive chamber? The iterator had claimed that the book had unleashed some horror of the warp and that had been what caused the fire, but Loken saw only words.
How could words be dangerous?
Even as he formed the thought, he blinked, the words blurring on the page in front of him. The symbols twisted from the unknown language of the Word Bearers to the harsh numerical language of Cthonia, before spiralling into the elegant script of Imperial Gothic and a thousand other languages he had never seen before.
He blinked to ward off a sudden, impossible, sense of dizziness.
What are you doing here, Loken?' a familiar voice asked in his ear.
Loken spun to face the voice, but once again he was alone. The temple was empty.
'How dare you break the trust of the Warmaster?' the voice asked, this time with a sense of weight behind it.
And this time he recognised the voice. He turned slowly and saw Torgaddon standing before die altar.
'Down!' yelled Tarvttz as gunfire streaked above him, stitching monochrome explosions along the barren rock of Isstvan Extremis. 'Squad Fulgerion, with me. All squads to position and wait for the go!'
Tarvitz ran, knowing that Sergeant Fulgerion's squad would be on his heels as he made for the cover of the closest crater. A web of criss-crossing tracer fire streaked the air before the monitoring station the Isstvanians had set up on Isstvan Extremis, a tall, organ-like structure of towers, domes and antennae. Anchored on the barren rock surface by massive docking claws, the station was dusted in a powdery residue of ice crystals and parВticulate matter.
The Isstvan system's sun was little more than a cold disc peeking above the horizon, lining everyВthing in a harsh blue light. Automatic gun ports spat fire at the advancing Emperor's Children, more than two hundred Astartes converging in a classic assault pattern to storm the massive blast doors of the station's eastern entrance.
Isstvan Extremis had little atmosphere to speak of and was lethally cold; only the sealed armour of the Space Marines made a ground assault possible.
Tarvitz slid into the crater, turret fire ripping up chunks of grey rock around him. Sergeant FulgeВrion and his warriors, shields held high to shelter
them from the fire, hit the ground to either side of him. Veterans only truly at home in the thick of the hardest fighting, Fulgerion and his squad had fought together for years and Tarvitz knew that he had some of the Legion's best warriors with him.
They were ready for us, then?' asked Fulgerion.
They must have known that we would return to restore compliance,’ said Tarvitz. 'Who knows how long they have been waiting for us to come back,’
Tarvitz glanced over the lip of the crater, spotting purple armoured forms fanning out in front of the gates to take up their allotted positions. That was how the Emperor's Children fought, manoeuvring into position to execute perfectly co-ordinated strikes, squads moving across a battle zone like pieces on a chess board.
'Captain Garro of the Death Guard reports that he is in position,’ said Eidolon's voice over the vox-net. 'Show them what war really is!'
The Death Guard had been assigned the task of taking the western approach to the station, and Tarvitz smiled as he imagined his old friend Garro marching his men grimly towards the guns, winВning through relentless determination rather than any finesse of tactics. Each to their own, he thought as he drew his broadsword.
Such blunt tactics were not the way of the Emperor's Children, for war was not simply about killing, it was art.
Tarvitz and Fulgerion in position,’ he reported. 'All units ready,’
'Execute!' came the order.
'You heard Lord Eidolon,’ he shouted. 'Children of the Emperor!'
The warriors around him cheered as he and Ful-gerion clambered over the crater lip and gunfire streaked overhead from the support squads. A perВfect ballet began with every one of his units acting in complete concert, heavy weapons pounding the enemy guns as assault units moved in to attack and tactical units took up covering positions.
Splintering explosions burst in the sub-zero air, chunks of debris blasted from the surface of the entrance dome as turret guns detonated and threw chains of bursting ammunition into the air.
A missile streaked past Tarvitz and burst against the blast doors, leaving a flaming, blackened crater in the metal. Another missile followed the first, and then another, and the doors crumpled inwards. Tarvitz saw the golden armour of Eidolon flashing in the planet's hard light, the lord commander heftВing a mighty hammer with blue arcs of energy crackling around its head.
The hammer slammed into die remains of the doors, blue-white light bursting like a lightning strike as they vanished in a thunderous explosion. Eidolon charged inside the facility, the honour his by virtue of his noble rank.
Tarvitz followed Eidolon in, ducking through the wrecked blast doors.
Inside, the station was in darkness, lit only by the muzzle flashes of bolter fire and sparking cables
torn from their mountings by the furious combat. Tarvitz's enhanced vision dispelled the darkness, warm air billowing from the station through the ruptured doors and white vapour surged around him as he saw the enemy for the first time.
They wore black armour with bulky power packs and thick cables that attached to heavy rifles. The plates of their armour were traced with silver scrollВwork, perhaps just for decoration, perhaps a pattern of circuitry.
Their faces were hooded, each with a single red lens over one eye. A hundred of them packed the dome, sheltering behind slabs of broken machinery and furniture. The armoured soldiers formed a solid defensive line, and no sooner had Eidolon and the Emperor's Children emerged from the entrance tunnel than they opened fire.
Rapid firing bolts of ruby laser fire spat out from the Isstvanian troops, filling the dome with horiВzontal red rain. Tarvitz took a trio of shots, one to his chest, one to his greaves and another cracking against his helmet, filling his senses with a burst of static.
Fulgerion was ahead of him, wading through the las-fire that battered his shield. Eidolon surged forwards in the centre of the line and his hammer bludgeoned Isstvanians to death with each lethal swing. A body flew through the air, its torso a crushed ruin and its limbs shattered by the shock of die hammer's impact. The weight of enemy fire faltered and the Emperor's Children charged
forwards,’overlapping fields of bolter fire shredding the Isstvanians' cover as close combat specialists crashed through the gaps to kill with gory sweeps of chainswords.
Tarvitz's bolt pistol snapped shots at the darting black figures catching one in the throat and spinВning him around. Squad Fulgerion took up position at the remains of the barricade, their bolters filling the dome with covering gunfire for Eidolon and his chosen warriors.
Tarvitz killed the enemy with brutally efficient shots and sweeps of his broadsword, fighting like a warrior of Fulgrim should. His every strike was a faultless killing blow, and his every step was meaВsured and perfect. Gunfire ricocheted from his gilded armour and the light of battle reflected from his helmet as if from a hero of ancient legend.
'We have the entrance dome,' shouted Eidolon as the last of the Isstvanians were efficiently despatched by the Astartes around him. 'Death Guard units report heavy resistance inside. Blow the inner doors and we'll finish this for them.'
Warriors with breaching charges rushed to destroy the inner doors, and even over the flames and shots, Tarvitz could hear muffled explosions from the other side. He lowered his sword and took a moment to survey his surroundings now that there was a lull in the fighting.
A dead body lay at his feet, the plates of the man's black armour ruptured and a ragged tear ripped in the hood covering his face. Frozen blood lay
scattered around him like precious stones and Tarvitz knelt to pull aside the torn cowl.
The man's skin was covered in an elaborate swirling black tattoo, echoing the silver designs on his armour. A frozen eye looked up at him, hollow and darkened, and Tarvitz wondered what manner of being had the power to force this man to renounce his oaths of loyalty to the Imperium.
Tarvitz was spared thinking of an answer by the dull thump of the interior doors blowing open. He put the dead man from his mind and set off after Eidolon as he held his hammer high and charged into the central dome. He ran alongside his fellow warriors, knowing that whatever the Isstvanians could throw at him, he was an Astartes and no weapon they had could match the will of the Emperor's Children.
Tarvitz and his men moved through the dust and smoke of the door's explosion, the autosenses of his armour momentarily useless.
Then they were through and into the heart of the Isstvan Extremis facility.
He pulled up short as he suddenly realised that the intelligence they had been given on this facility was utterly wrong.
This was not a comms station, it was a temple.
Torgaddon's face was ashen and leathery, puckВered and scarred around a burning yellow eye. Sharpened metallic teeth glinted in a lipless mouth and twin gashes were torn in the centre of his face.
A star with eight points was gouged in his temple, mirroring its golden twin etched upon his ornate, black armour.
'No,’ said Loken, backing away from this terrible apparition.
'You have trespassed, Loken,’ hissed Torgaddon. 'You have betrayed,’
A dry, deathly wind carried Torgaddon's words, gusting over him with the smell of burning bodies. As he breathed the noxious wind, a vision of broВken steppes spread out before Loken, expanses of desolation and plains of rusted machinery like skeletons of extinct monsters. A hive city on the disВtant horizon split open like a flower, and from its broken, burning petals rose a mighty tower of brass that punctured the pollution-heavy clouds.
The sky above was burning and the laughter of Dark Gods boomed from the heavens. Loken wanted to scream, this vision of devastation worse than anything he had seen before
This wasn't real. It couldn't be. He did not believe in ghosts and illusions.
The thought gave him strength. He wrenched his mind away from the dying world, and suddenly he was soaring through the galaxy, tumbling between the stars. He saw them destroyed, bleeding glowing plumes of stellar matter into the void. A baleful mass of red stars glowered above him, staring like a great and terrible eye of flame. An endless tide of titanic monsters and vast space fleets vomited from that eye, drowning the universe in a tide of blood.
A sea of burning flames spat and leapt from the blood, consuming all in its path, leaving black, barВren wasteland in its wake.
Was this a vision of some lunatic's hell, a dimension of destruction and chaos where sinners went when they died? Loken forced himself to remember the lurid descriptions from the Chronicles of Ursh, the outВlandish scenes described by inventions of dark faith. No, said the voice of Torgaddon, this is no madВman's delusion. It is the future.
'You're not Torgaddon!' shouted Loken, shaking the whispering voice from his head. You are seeing the galaxy die. Loken saw the Sons of Horus in the tide of fiery madness that poured from the red eye, armoured in black and surrounded by leaping, deformed creatures. Abaddon was there, and Horus himself, an immense obsidian giant who crushed worlds in his gauntlets.
This could not be the future. This was a diseased distorted vision of the future.
A galaxy in which mankind was led by the Emperor could never become such a terrible maelВstrom of chaos and death. You are wrong.
The galaxy in flames receded and Loken scrabbled for some solidity, something to reassure him that this terrifying vision could never come to pass. He was tumbling again, his vision blurring until he opened his eyes and found himself in Archive Chamber Three, a place he had felt safe, surВrounded by books that rendered the universe down
to pure logic and kept the madness locked up in crude pagan epics where it belonged.
But something was wrong, the books were burnВing around him, this purest of knowledge being systematically destroyed to keep the masses ignoВrant of their truths. The shelves held nothing but flames and ash, the heat battering against Loken as he tried to save the dying books. His hands blisВtered and blackened as he fought to save the wisdom of ancient times, the flesh peeling back from his bones.
The music of the spheres. The mechanisms of reality, invisible and all around…
Loken could see it where the flames burned through, the endless churning mass of the warp at the heart of everything and the eyes of dark forces seething with malevolence. Grotesque creatures cavorted obscenely among heaps of corpses, horned heads and braying, goat-like faces twisted by the mindless artifice of the warp. Bloated monsters, their bodies heaving with maggots and filth, devoured dead stars as a brass-clad giant bellowed an endless war cry from its throne of skulls and soulless magiВcians sacrificed billions in a silver city built of lies.
Loken fought to tear his sight from this madness. Remembering the words he had thrown in Horus Aximand's face at the Delphos Gate, he screamed them aloud once more:
'I will not bow to any fane or acknowledge any spirit. I own only the empirical clarity of ImperВial Truth!'
In an instant, the walls of the dark temple slammed back into place around him, the air thick with incense, and he gasped for breath. Loken's heart pumped wildly and his head spun, sick with the effort of casting out what he had seen.
This was not fear. This was anger.
Those who came to this fane were selling out the entire human race to dark forces that lurked unseen in the depths of the warp. Were these the same forces that had infected Xayver Jubal? The same forces that had nearly killed Sindermann in the ship's archive?
Loken felt sick as he realised that everything he knew about the warp was wrong.
He had been told that there were no such things as gods.
He had been told that there was nothing in the warp but insensate, elemental power.
He had been told that the galaxy was too sterile for melodrama.
Everything he had been told was a lie.
Feeding on the strength his anger gave him, Loken lurched towards the altar and slammed the ancient book closed, snapping the brass hasp over the lock. Even shut, he could feel the terrible purВpose locked within its pages. The idea that a book could have some sort of power would have sounded ludicrous to Loken only a few months ago, but he could not doubt the evidence of his own senses, despite the incredible, terrifying, unimaginable things he had seen and heard. He
gathered up the book and clutching it under one arm, turned and made his way from the fane.
He closed the door and eased past the banner of the Seventh, emerging once more into the secluded darkness of the strategium.
Sindermann had been right. Loken was hearing the music of the spheres, and it was a terrible sound that spoke of corruption, blood and the death of the universe.
Loken knew with utter certainty that it was up to him to silence it.
The interior of the Isstvan Extremis facility was domВinated by a wide, stepped pyramid, its huge stone blocks fashioned from a material that clearly had no place on such a world. Each block came from some other building many of them still bearing architecВtural carvings, sections of friezes, gargoyles or even statues jutting crazily from the structure
Isstvanian soldiers swarmed around the base of the pyramid, fighting in desperate close quarters battle with the steel-armoured figures of the Death Guard. The battle had no shape, the art of war having given way to the grinding brutality of simple killing.
Tarvitz's gaze was drawn from the slaughter to the very top of the pyramid, where a bright light spun and twisted around a half-glimpsed figure surВrounded by keening harmonics.
'Attack!' bellowed Eidolon, charging forwards as the tip of the spear, assault units the killing edges
around him. Tarvitz forgot about the strange figure and followed the lord commander, driving Eidolon forwards by covering him and holding off enemies who tried to surround him.
More Emperor's Children stormed into the dome and the battle at the base of the pyramid. Tarvitz saw Lucius beside Eidolon, the swordsman's blade shining like a harnessed star.
It was typical that Lucius would be at the front, demonstrating that he would rise swiftly through the ranks and take his place alongside Eidolon as the Legion's best. Tarvitz slashed his weapon left and right, needing no skill to kill these foes, simply a strong sword arm and the will to win. He clamВbered onto the first level of the pyramid, fighting his way up its side through rank after rank of black armoured foes.
He stole a glance towards the top of the pyramid, seeing the burnished Death Guard warriors climbВing ahead of him to reach the figure at the summit.
Leading the Death Guard was the familiar, brutal form of Nathanial Garro, his old friend forging upwards with powerful strides and his familiar grim determination. Even amid the furious battle, Tarvitz was glad to be fighting alongside his sworn honour brother once again. Garro forced his way towards the top of the pyramid, aiming his charge towards the glowing figure that commanded the battlefield.
Long hair whipped around it, and as sheets of lightning arced upwards, Tarvitz saw that it was a
woman, her sweeping silk robes lashing like the tendrils of some undersea creature.
Even above the chaos of battle, he could hear her voice and it was singing.
The force of the music lifted her from the pyraВmid, suspending her above the pinnacle on a song of pure force. Hundreds of harmonies wound impossibly over one another, screeching notes smashing together as they ripped from her unnatВural throat. Stones flew from the pyramid's summit, spiralling towards the dome's ceiling as her song broke apart the warp and weft of reality.
As Tarvitz watched, a single discordant note rose to the surface in a tremendous crescendo, and an explosion blew out a huge chunk of the pyramid, massive blocks of stone tumbling in the currents of light. The pyramid shuddered and stones crashed down amongst the Emperor's Children, crushing some and knocking many more from its side.
Tarvitz fought to keep his balance as portions of the pyramid collapsed in a rumbling landslide of splintered stone and rubble. The armoured body of a Death Guard slithered down the slope towards a sheer drop into the falling masonry and Tarvitz saw that it was the bloodied form of Garro.
He scrambled across the disintegrating pyramid and leapt towards the drop, catching hold of the warrior's armour and dragging him towards firmer ground.
Tarvitz pulled Garro away from the fighting, seeВing that his friend was badly wounded. One leg was severed at mid thigh and portions of his chest and
upper arm were crushed. Frozen, coagulated blood swelled like blown glass around his injuries and shards of stone jutted from his abdomen.
Tarvitz!' growled Garro, his anger greater than his pain. 'It's a Warsinger. Don't listen.'
'Hold on, brother,’ said Tarvitz. 'I'll be back for you,’ 'Just kill it,’ spat Garro.
Tarvitz looked up, seeing the Warsinger closer as she drifted towards the Emperor's Children. Her face was serene and her arms were open as if to welВcome them, her eyes closed as she drew the terrible song from her.
Yet more blocks of stone were lifting from the pyraВmid around the Emperor's Children. Tarvitz saw one warrior – Captain Odovocar, the Bearer of the Legion banner – dragged from his feet and into the air by the Warsinger's chorus. His armour jerked as if torn at by invisible fingers, sparking sheets of ceramite peeling back as the Warsinger's power took it apart.
Odovocar came apart with it, his helmet ripping free and trailing glittering streamers of blood and bone as it took his head off.
As Odovocar died, Tarvitz was struck by the savВage beauty of the song, a song he felt she was singing just for him. Beauty and death were capВtured in its discordant notes, the wonderful peace that would come if he just gave himself up to it and let the music of oblivion take him. War would end and violence wouldn't even be a memory. Don't listen to it.
Tarvitz snarled and his bolt pistol kicked in his hand as he fired at the Warsinger, the sound of the shots drowned by the cacophony. Shells impacted against a sheath of shimmering force around the Warsinger, blooms of white light exploding around her as they detonated prematurely. More and more of the Astartes, Emperor's Children and Death Guard both, were being pulled up into the air and sonically dismembered, and Tarvitz knew they didn't have much time before their cause was lost.
The surviving Isstvanian soldiers were regrouping, storming up the pyramid after the Astartes. Tarvitz saw Lucius among them, sword slashing black-armoured limbs from bodies as they fought to surround him.
Lucius could look after himself and Tarvitz forced himself onwards, struggling to keep his footing amid the chaos of the Warsinger's wanton destrucВtion. Gold gleamed ahead of him and he saw Eidolon's armour shining like a beacon in the Warsinger's light. The lord commander bellowed in defiance and pulled himself up the last few levels of the pyramid as Tarvitz climbed to join him.
The Warsinger drew a shining caul of light around her and Eidolon plunged into it, the glare becoming opaque like a shining white shell. Tarvitz's pistol was empty, so he dropped it, taking a two handed grip on his sword and following his lord commander into the light.
The deafening shrieks of the Warsinger filled his head with deathly unmusic, rising to a crescendo as he penetrated the veil of light.
Eidolon was on his knees, his hammer lost and the Warsinger hovering over him. Her hands stretched out in front of her as she battered Eidolon with waves of force strong enough to distort the air.
Eidolon's armour warped around him, his helmet ripped from his head in a wash of blood, but he was still alive and fighting.
Tarvitz charged, screaming, 'For the Emperor!'
The Warsinger saw him and smashed him to the floor with a dismissive flick of her wrist. His helmet cracked with the force of the impact and for a moment his world was filled with the awful beauty of the Warsinger's song. His vision returned in time for him to see Eidolon lunging forwards. His charge had bought Eidolon a momentary distraction, the harmonics of her song redirected for the briefest moment.
The briefest moment was all a warrior of the Emperor's Children needed.
Eidolon's eyes were ablaze, his hatred and revulВsion at this foe clear as his mouth opened in a cry of rage. His mouth opened still wider and he let loose his own screeching howl. Tarvitz rolled onto his back, dropping his sword and clutching his hands to his ears at the dreadful sound. Where the Warsinger's song had layered its death in beguiling beauty, there was no such grace in the sonic assault launched by Eidolon, it was simply agonising, deafВening volume.
The crippling noise smashed into the Warsinger and suddenly her grace was torn away. She opened
her mouth to sing a fresh song of death, but Eidolon's scream turned her cries into a grim dirge.
Sounds of mourning and pain layered over one another into a heavy funereal drone as the Warsinger dropped to her knees. Eidolon bent and picked up Tarvitz's fallen broadsword, his own terВrible scream now silenced. The Warsinger writhed in pain, arcing coils of light whipping from her as she lost control of her song.
Eidolon waded through the light and noise. The broadsword licked out and Eidolon cut the Warsinger's head from her shoulders with a single sweep of silver.
Finally the Warsinger was silent.
Tarvitz clung to the crumbling summit of the pyraВmid and watched as Eidolon raised the sword in victory still trying to understand what he had seen.
The Warsinger's monstrous harmonies still rang in his head, but he shook them off as he stared in disbelief at the lord commander.
Eidolon turned to Tarvitz, and dropped the broadsword beside him. i
'A good blade,’ he said. 'My thanks for your interВvention.'
'How…?' was all Tarvitz could muster, his senses still overcome with the deafening shriek Eidolon had unleashed.
'Strength of will, Tarvitz,' said Eidolon. That's what it was, strength of will. The bitch's damn magic was no match for a pair of warriors like us, eh?'
'I suppose not,’ said Tarvitz, accepting a hand up from Eidolon. The dome was suddenly, eerily silent. The Isstvanians who still lived were slumped where they had fallen at the Warsinger's death, weeping and rocking back and forth like children at the loss of a parent.
'I don't understand-' he began as warriors of the Death Guard started securing the dome.
'You don't need to understand, Tarvitz,’ said Eidolon. 'We won, that's what matters,’
'But what you did-'
'What I did was kill our enemies,’ snapped Eidolon. 'Understood?'
'Understood,’ nodded Tarvitz, although he no more understood Eidolon's newfound ability than he did the celestial mechanics of travelling through the warp.
Eidolon said, 'Kill any remaining enemy troops. Then destroy this place,’ before turning and making his way down the shattered pyramid to the cheers of his warriors.
Tarvitz retrieved his fallen weapons and watched the aftermath of victory unfolding below him. The Astartes were regrouping and he made his way back down to where he had left the wounded Garro.
The captain of the Death Guard was sitting propped up against the side of the pyramid, his chest heaving with the effort of breathing and Tarvitz could see it had taken a supreme effort of will not to let the pain balms of his armour render him unconscious.
Tarvitz, you're alive,’ said Garro as he climbed down the last step.
'Just about,’ he said. 'More than can be said for you,’
This?' sneered Garro. 'I've had worse than this. You mark my words, lad, I'll be up and teaching you a few new tricks in the training cages again before you know it,’
Despite the strangeness of the battle and the lives that had been lost, Tarvitz smiled.
'It is good to see you again, Nathaniel,’ said Tarvitz, leaning down and taking Garro's proffered hand. 'It has been too long since we fought together,’
'It has that, my honour brother,’ nodded Garro, 'but I have a feeling we will have plenty of opporВtunities to fight as one before this campaign is over,’
'Not if you keep letting yourself get injured like this. You need an apothecary,’
'Nonsense, boy, there's plenty worse than me that need a sawbones first,’
'You never did learn to accept that you'd been hurt did you?' smiled Tarvitz.
'No,’ agreed Garro. 'It's not the Death Guard way, is it?'
'I wouldn't know,’ said Tarvitz, waving over an Emperor's Children apothecary despite Garro's protests. You're too barbarous a Legion for me to ever understand,’
'And you're a bunch of pretty boys, more conВcerned with looking good than getting the job
done,’ said Garro, rounding off the traditional insults that passed for greetings between them. Both warriors had been through too much in their long friendship and saved each other's lives too many times to allow formality and petty differences between their Legions to matter.
Garro jerked his thumb in the direction of the summit. You killed her?'
'No,’ said Tarvitz. 'Lord Commander Eidolon did,’
'Eidolon, eh?' mused Garro. 'Never did have much time for him. Still, if he managed to bring her down, he's obviously learned a thing or two since I last met him,’
'I think you might be right,’ said Tarvitz.
SIX
The soul of the Legion
Everything will be different
Abomination
Loken found Abaddon in the observation dome that blistered from the hull of the upper decks of the Vengeful Spirit, the transparent glass looking out onto the barren wasteland of Isstvan Extremis. The dome was quiet and dark, a perfect place for reflecВtion and calm, and Abaddon looked out of place, his power and energy like that of a caged beast poised to attack.
'Loken,’ said Abaddon as he walked into the chamber. 'You summoned me here?'
'I did,’
'Why?' demanded Abaddon.
'Loyalty,’ said Loken simply.
Abaddon snorted. 'You don't know the meaning of the word. You have never had it tested,’
'Like you did on Davin?'
Ah,’ sighed Abaddon, 'so that is what this is about. Don't think to lecture me, Loken. You couldn't have taken the steps we did to save the Warmaster.'
'Maybe I'm the only one who took a stand.'
'Against what? You would have allowed the War-master to die rather than accept that there might be something in this universe you don't underВstand?'
'I am not here to debate what happened on Davin,’ said Loken, already feeling that he had lost control of the conversation.
Then why are you here? I have warriors to make ready, and I won't waste time with you on idle words.'
'I called you here because I need answers. About this,’ said Loken, casting the book he had taken from the fane behind the strategium onto the mosaic floor of the observation dome.
Abaddon stooped to retrieve the book. In the hands of the first captain, it looked tiny, like one of Ignace Karkasy's pamphlets.
'So you're a thief now,’ said Abaddon.
'Do not dare speak to me of such things, Ezekyle, not until you have given me answers. I know that Erebus conspired against us. He stole the anathame from the interex and brought it to Davin. I know it and you know it,’
'You know nothing, Loken,’ sneered Abaddon. 'What happens in this Crusade happens for the good of the Imperium. The Warmaster has a plan.'
'A plan?' said Loken. And this plan requires the murder of innocent people? Hektor Varvarus? Ignace Karkasy? Petronella Vivar?'
'The remembrancers?' laughed Abaddon. 'You really care about those people? They are lesser people, Loken, beneath us. The Council of Terra wants to drown us in these petty bureaucrats to stifle us and strangle our ambitions to conquer the galaxy.'
'Erebus,’ said Loken, trying to keep his anger in check, 'why was he on the Vengeful Spirit!'
Abaddon crossed the width of the observation dome in a second. 'None of your damn business,’
'This is my Legion!' shouted Loken. That makes it my damn business,’
'Not any more,’
Loken felt his choler rise and clenched his hands into murderous fists.
Abaddon saw the tension in him and said, Thinking of settling this like a warrior?'
'No, Ezekyle,’ said Loken through clenched teeth. 'Despite all that has happened, you are still my Mournival brother and I will not fight you,’
The Mournival,’ nodded Abaddon. A noble idea while it lasted, but I regret ever bringing you in. In any case, if it came down to bloodshed do you really think you could beat me?'
Loken ignored the taunt and said, 'Is Erebus still here?'
'Erebus is a guest on the Warmaster's flagship,’ said Abaddon. 'You would do well to remember
that. If you had joined us when you had the chance instead of turning your back on us, you would have all your answers, but that's the choice you made, Loken. Live with it,’
'The lodge has brought something evil into our Legion, Ezekyle, maybe the other Legions too, something from the warp. It's what killed Jubal and it's what took Temba on Davin. Erebus is lying to all of us!'
'And we're being used, is that right? Erebus is manipulating us all towards a fate worse than death?' spat Abaddon. 'You know so little. If you understood the scale of the Warmaster's designs then you would beg us to take you back,’
Then tell me, Ezekyle, and maybe I'll beg. We were brothers once and we can be again,’
'Do you really believe that, Loken? You've made it plain enough that you're against us. Torgaddon said as much,’
'For my Legion, for my Warmaster, there is always a way back,’ replied Loken, 'as long as you feel the same,’
'But you'll never surrender, eh?'
'Never! Not when the soul of my Legion is at stake,’
Abaddon shook his head. We tie ourselves in such knots because men like you are too proud to make compromises,’
'Compromise will be the death of us, Ezekyle,’
'Forget this until after Isstvan, Loken,’ ordered Abaddon. 'After Isstvan, this will end,’
'I will not forget it, Ezekyle. I will have my answers,’ snarled Loken, turning and walking away from his brother.
'If you fight us, you'll lose,’ promised Abaddon.
'Maybe,’ replied Loken, 'but others will stand against you,’
Then they will die too,’
'Thank you all for coming,’ said Sindermann, overВwhelmed and a little afraid at the number of people gathered before him. 'I appreciate that you have all taken a great risk to be here, but this is too much,’
Crammed into a dark maintenance space, filthy with grease and hemmed in by low hissing pipe work, the faithful had come from all over the ship to hear the saint's words, mistakenly believing that she was awake. Amongst the crowd, Sindermann saw the uniforms of Titan crewmen, fleet mainteВnance workers, medical staff, security personnel, and even a few Imperial Army troopers. Men with guns guarded the entrances to the maintenance space and their presence served as a stark reminder of the danger they were in just by being here.
Such a large gathering was dangerous, too easily noticed, and Sindermann knew that he had to disВperse them quickly before they were discovered, and do it in such a way as not to incite a riot.
You have escaped notice thus far thanks to the size of your gatherings, but so many cannot avoid notice for long,’ continued Sindermann. You will no doubt have heard many strange and wonderful
things recently, and I hope you will forgive me for putting you in harm's way'
The news of Keeler's rescue had spread quickly в– through the ship. It had been whispered among the grime-covered ratings, it had been communicated through the remembrancer order with the rapidity of an epidemic and it had reached the ears of even the lowliest member of the expedition. Embellishments and wild rumour followed in the wake of the news and tales abounded of the saint and her miraculous powers, incredible stories of bullets turned aside and of visions of the Emperor speaking direcdy to her in order to show His people the way
'What of the saint?' asked a voice from the crowd. 'We want to see her!'
Sindermann held up a hand and said, 'The saint is fortunate to be alive. She is well, but she still sleeps. Some of you have heard that she is awake, and that she has spoken, but regrettably this is not the case.'
A disappointed buzz spread throughout the crowd, angry at Sindermann's denial of what many of them desperately wanted to believe. Sindermann was reminded of the speeches he had given on newly-compliant worlds, where he had used his iterator's wiles to extol the virtues of the Imperial Truth.
Now he had to use those same skills to give these people hope.
'The saint still sleeps, it's true, but for one brief, shining moment she arose from her slumbers to
save my life. I saw her eyes open and I know that when we need her, she will come back to us. Until then we must walk warily, for there are those in the fleet who would destroy us for our beliefs. The very fact that we must meet in secret and rely on armed guards to keep us safe is a reminder that Mal-oghurst himself regularly sends troops to break up the meetings of the Lectitio Divinitatus. People have been killed and their blood is on the hands of the Astartes. Ignace Karkasy, Emperor rest his soul, knew the dangers of an unchecked Astartes before any of us realised their hands were around our throats.
'Once, I could not believe in such things as saints. I had trained myself to accept only logic and science, and to cast aside religion as superstiВtion. Magic and miracles were impossible, simply the invention of ignorant people struggling to understand their world. It took the sacrifice of the saint to show me how arrogant I was. I saw how the Emperor protects, but she has shown me that there is so much more than that, for, if the Emperor protects His faithful, who protects the Emperor?' Sindermann let the question hang. 'We must,' said Titus Cassar, pushing his way towards the front of the crowd and turning to address them. Sindermann had placed Cassar in the crowd with specific instructions on when to speak – a basic ploy of the iterators to reinforce their message.
We must protect the Emperor, for there is no one else,’ said Cassar. The moderati looked back at Sin-dermann. 'But we must stay alive in order to do so. Is that not right, iterator?'
'Yes,’ said Sindermann. 'The faith that this conВgregation has displayed has caused such fear in the higher echelons of the fleet that they are tryВing to destroy us. The Emperor has an enemy here; of that I am sure. We must survive and we must stand against that enemy when it finally reveals itself,’
Worried and angry murmurings spread through the crowd as the deadly nature of the threat sank in. 'Faithful friends,’ said Sindermann, 'the dangers we face are great, but the saint is with us and she needs shelter. Shelter we can best achieve alone, but watch for the signs and be safe. Spread the word of her safety,’
Cassar moved through the congregation, instructВing them to return to their posts. Reassured by Sindermann's words, they gradually began to disВperse. As he watched them go, Sindermann wondered how many of them would live through the coming days.
The Gallery of Swords ran the length of the Andro-nius like the ship's gilded spine. Its roof was transparent and the space beneath was lit by the fire of distant stars. Hundreds of statues lined the gallery, heroes of the Emperor's Children with gem-stone eyes and stern expressions of judgement. The
worth of a hero was said to be measured by how long he could meet their gaze while walking the length of the Gallery of Swords beneath their unforВgiving eyes.
Tarvitz held his head high as he entered the gallery, though he knew he was no hero, simply a warrior who did his best. Chapter Masters and commanders from long ago glared at him, their names and noble countenances known and revered by every warrior of the Emperor's Children. Entire wings of the Andronius were given over to the fallen battle-brothers of the Legion, but it was here that every warrior hoped to be remembered.
Tarvitz had no expectation of his visage ending up here, but he would strive to end his days in a manner that might be considered worthy of such an honour. Even if such a lofty goal was impossible, it was something to aspire to.
Eidolon stood before the graven image of Lord Commander Teliosa, the hero of the Madrivane Campaign, and even before Tarvitz drew near he turned to face him.
'Captain Tarvitz,’ said Eidolon. 'I have rarely seen you here,’
'It is not my natural habitat, commander,’ replied Tarvitz. 'I leave the heroes of our Legion to their rest,’
Then what brings you here now?' 'I would speak with you if you would permit me,’ 'Surely your time is better spent attending to your warriors, Tarvitz. That is where your talents lie,’
You honour me by saying so, commander, but there is something I need to ask you.'
'About?'
The death of the Warsinger.'
'Ah,’ Eidolon looked up at the statue towering over them, the hollow eyes regarding them with a cold, unflinching gaze. 'She was quite an adversary; absolutely corrupt, but that corruption gave her strength.'
'I need to know how you killed her.'
'Captain? You speak as if to an equal,’
'I saw what you did, commander,’ Tarvitz pressed. That scream, it was some… I don't know… some power I've never heard of before,’
Eidolon held up a hand. 'I can understand why you have questions, and I can answer them, but perhaps it would be better for me to show you. FolВlow me,’
Tarvitz followed the lord commander as they walked further down the Gallery of Swords, turnВing into a side passage with sheets of parchment pinned along the length of its walls. Accounts of glorious actions from the Legion's past were meticulously recorded on them and novices of the Legion were required to memorise the many different battles before their elevation to full Astartes.
The Emperor's Children did more than just remember their triumphs; they proclaimed them, because the perfection of the Legion's way of war deserved celebrating.
'Do you know why I fought the Warsinger?' asked Eidolon.
my?'
Yes, captain, why,’
'Because that is how the Emperor's Children fight,’
'Explain,’
'Our heroes lead from the front. The rest of the Legion is inspired to follow their example. They can do this because the Legion fights with such artistry that they are not rendered vulnerable by fighting at the fore,’
Eidolon smiled. 'Very good, captain. I should have you instruct the novices. And you yourself, would you lead from the front?'
Sudden hope flared in Tarvitz's breast. 'Of course! Given the chance, I would. I had not thought you considered me worthy of such a role,’
'You are not, Tarvitz. You are a file officer and nothing more,’ said Eidolon, crashing his faint hope that he had been about to be offered a way of proving his mettle as a leader and a hero.
'I say this not as an insult,’ Eidolon continued, apparently oblivious to the insult it clearly was. 'Men like you fulfil an important role in our Legion, but I am one of Fulgrim's chosen. The pri-march chose me and elevated me to the position I now hold. He looked upon me and saw in me the qualities needed to lead the Emperor's Children. He looked upon you, and did not. Because of this, I understand the responsibilities that come with
being Fulgrim's chosen in a way that you cannot, Captain Tarvitz,’
Eidolon led him to a grand staircase that curved downwards into a large hall tiled with white marble. Tarvitz recognised it as one of the entrances to the ship's apothecarion, where the injured from Isstvan Extremis had been brought only a few hours before.
'I think you underestimate me, lord commander,’ said Tarvitz, 'but understand that for the sake of my men I must know-'
'For the sake of our men we all make sacrifices,’ snapped Eidolon. 'For the chosen, those sacrifices are great. Foremost among these is that fact that everything is secondary to victory,’
'Commander, I don't understand,’
'You will,’ said Eidolon, leading him through a gilded archway and into the central apothecarion.
'The book?' asked Torgaddon.
The book,’ repeated Loken. 'It's the key. Erebus is on the ship, I know it,’
The ashen darkness of Archive Chamber Three was one of the few places left on the Vengeful Spirit where Loken felt at home, remembering many a lively debate with Kyril Sindermann in simpler times. Loken had not seen the iterator for weeks and he fervently hoped that the old man was safe, that he had not fallen foul of Maloghurst or his faceless soldiers.
'Abaddon and the others must be keeping him safe,’ said Torgaddon.
Loken sighed. 'How did it come to this? I would have given my life for Abaddon, Aximand, too, and I know they would have done the same for me,’
'We can't give up on this, Garviel. There will be a way out of this. We can bring the Moumival back together, or at least make sure the Warmaster sees what Erebus is doing,’
Whatever that is,’
Yes, whatever that is. Guest of the lodge or not, he's not welcome on my ship. He's the key. If we find him, we can expose what's going on to the Warmaster and end this,’
'You really believe that?'
'I don't know, but that won't stop me trying,’
Torgaddon looked around him, stirring the ashes of the charred books on the shelves with a finger and said, Why did you have to meet me here? It smells like a funeral pyre,’
'Because no one ever comes here,’ said Loken.
'I can't imagine why, seeing as how pleasant it is,’
'Don't be flippant, Tarik, not now. The Great CruВsade was once about bringing illumination to the far corners of the galaxy, but now it is afraid of knowledge. The more we learn, the more we quesВtion and the more we question the more we see through the lies perpetrated upon us. To those who want to control us, books are dangerous,’
'Iterator Loken,’ laughed Torgaddon, 'you've enlightened me,’
'I had a good teacher,’ said Loken, again thinking of Kyril Sindermann, and the fact that everything he
had been taught to believe was being shaken to its core. 'And there's more at stake here than a split between Astartes. It's… It's philosophy, ideology, religion even… everything. Kyril taught me that this kind of blind obedience is what led to the Age of Strife. We've crossed the galaxy to bring peace and illumination, but the cause of our downfall could be right here amongst us.'
Torgaddon leaned over and put a hand on his friend's shoulder. 'Listen, we're about to go into battle on Isstvan III and the word from the Death Guard is that the enemy is led by some kind of psyВchic monsters that can kill with a scream. They're not the enemy because they read the wrong books or anything like that; they're the enemy because the Warmaster tells us they are. Forget about all this for a while. Go and fight. That'll put some perspective on things,’
'Do you even know if we'll be headed down there?'
'The Warmaster's picked the squads for the speartip. We're in it, and it looks as if we'll be in charge, too.'
'Really? After all that's happened?
'I know, but I won't look a gift horse in the mouth,’
At least I'll have the Tenth with me,’
Torgaddon shook his head. 'Not quite. The War-master hasn't chosen the speartip by company. It's squad by squad,’
'Why?'
'Because he thinks that confused look on your face is funny,’
'Please. Be serious, Tarik,’
Torgaddon shrugged. The Warmaster knows what he's doing. It won't be an easy battle. We'll be dropВping right on top of the city,’
What about Locasta?'
'You'll have them. I don't think you could have held Vipus back anyway. You know what he's like, he'd have stowed away on a drop-pod if he'd been left out. He's like you, he needs to clear his head with a good dose of fighting. After Isstvan things will get back to normal,’
'Good. I'll feel a lot better with Locasta backing us up,’
'Well, it's true that you need the help,’ smiled TorВgaddon.
Loken chuckled, not because Torgaddon was actually funny, but because even after everything he was still the same, a person that he could trust and a friend he could rely on.
You're right, Tarik,’ said Loken. 'After Isstvan everything will be different,’
The central apothecarion gleamed with glass and steel, dozens of medical cells branching off from the circular hub of the main laboratory. Tarvitz felt a chill travel the length of his spine as he saw Captain Odovocar's ruined body susВpended in a stasis tank, waiting for its gene-seed to be harvested.
Eidolon marched through the hub and down a tiled corridor that led into a gilded vestibule domiВnated by a huge mosaic depicting Fulgrim's victory at Tarsus, where the primarch had vanquished the deceitful eldar despite his many grievous wounds. Eidolon reached up and pressed one of the enamВelled chips that formed Fulgrim's belt, standing back as the mosaic arced upwards, revealing a glowВing passageway and winding spiral staircase beyond. Eidolon strode down the passageway, indiВcating that Tarvitz should follow him.
The lack of ornamentation was a contrast to the rest of the Andronius and Tarvitz saw a cold blue glow emanating from whatever lay below as he made his way down the stairs. As they reached the end of their descent, Eidolon turned to him and said, This, Captain Tarvitz, is your answer.'
The blue light shone from a dozen ceiling-high translucent cylinders that stood against the sides of the room. Each was filled with liquid with indisВtinct shapes suspended in them – some roughly humanoid, some more like collections of organs or body parts. The rest of the room was taken up by gleaming laboratory benches covered in equipВment, some with purposes he couldn't even begin to guess at.
He moved from tank to tank, repulsed as he saw that some were full of monstrously bloated flesh that was barely contained by the glass.
"What is this?' asked Tarvitz in horror at such grotesque sights.
'I fear my explanations would be insufficient,' said Eidolon, walking towards an archway leading into the next room. Tarvitz followed him, peering more closely at the cylinders as he passed. One conВtained an Astartes-sized body, but not a corpse, more like something that had never been born, its features sunken and half-formed.
Another cylinder contained only a head, but one which had large, multi-faceted eyes like an insect. As he looked closer, Tarvitz realised with sick horВror mat the eyes had not been grafted on, for he saw no scars and the skull had reshaped itself to accomВmodate them. They had been grown there. He moved on to the last cylinder, seeing a mass of brains linked by fleshy cables held in liquid susВpension, each one with extra lobes bulging like tumours.
Tarvitz felt a profound chill coming from the next room, its walls lined with refrigerated metal cabiВnets. He briefly wondered what was in them, but decided he didn't want to know as his imagination conjured all manner of deformities and mutations. A single operating slab filled the centre of the room, easily large enough for an Astartes warrior to be restrained upon, with a chirargeon device mounted on the ceiling above.
Neatly cut sections of muscle fibre were spread across the slab. Apothecary Fabius bent over them, the hissing probes and needles of his narthecium embedded in a dark mass of glistening meat.
'Apothecary,’ said Eidolon, 'the captain wishes to know of our enterprise,’
Fabius looked up in surprise, his long intelligent face framed by a mane of fine blond hair. Only his eyes were out of place, small and dark, set into his skull like black pearls. He wore a floor-length med-icae gown, blood streaking its pristine whiteness with runnels of crimson.
'Really?' said Fabius. 'I had not been made aware that Captain Tarvitz was among our esteemed comВpany,’
'He is not,’ said Eidolon. 'Not yet anyway,’
'Then why is he here?'
'My own alterations have come to light,’
'Ah, I see,’ nodded Fabius.
What is going on here?' asked Tarvitz sharply. 'What is this place?'
Fabius cocked an eyebrow. 'So you have seen the results of the commander's augmentations, have you?'
'Is he a psyker?' demanded Tarvitz.
'No, no, no!' laughed Fabius. 'He is not. The lord commander's abilities are the result of a tracheal implant combined with alteration in the gene-seed rhythms. He is something of a success. His powers are metabolic and chemical, not psychic,’
You have altered the geneseed?' breathed Tarvitz in shock. The gene-seed is the blood of our primarch… When he discovers what you are doing here…'
'Don't be naive, captain,’ said Fabius. Who do you think ordered us to proceed?'
'No,’ said Tarvitz. 'He wouldn't-' That is why I had to show you this, captain,’ said Eidolon. 'You remember the Cleansing of Laeran?' 'Of course,’ answered Tarvitz. 'Our primarch saw what the Laer had achieved by chemical and genetic manipulation of their biologВical structure in their drive for physical perfection. The Lord Fulgrim has great plans for our Legion, Tarvitz, the Emperor's Children cannot be content to sit on their laurels while our fellow Astartes win the same dull victories. We must continue to strive towards perfection, but we are fast reaching the point where even an Astartes cannot match the standards Lord Fulgrim and the Warmaster demand. To meet those standards, we must change. We must evolve,’
Tarvitz backed away from the operating slab. The Emperor created Lord Fulgrim to be the perfect warrior and the Legion's warriors were moulded in his image. That image is what we strive towards. Holding a xenos race up as an example of perfecВtion is an abomination!'
'An abomination?' said Eidolon. 'Tarvitz, you are brave and disciplined, and your warriors respect you, but you do not have the imagination to see where this work can lead us. You must realise that the Legion's supremacy is of greater importance than any mortal squeamishness,’
Such a bold statement, its arrogance and conceit beyond anything he had heard Eidolon say before, stunned Tarvitz to silence.
'But for your unlikely presence at the death ot the Warsinger, you would never have been granted this chance, Tarvitz,’ said Eidolon. 'Understand it for the opportunity it represents,’
Tarvitz looked up at the lord commander sharply. 'What do you mean?'
'Now you know what we are attempting, perhaps you are ready to become a part of this Legion's future instead of simply one of its line officers,’
'It is not without risk,’ Fabius pointed out, 'but I could work such wonders upon your flesh. I can make you more than you are, I can bring you closer to perfection,’
'Think of the alternative,’ said Eidolon. You will fight and die knowing that you could have been so much more,’
Tarvitz looked at the two warriors before him, both Fulgrim's chosen and both exemplars of the Legion's relentless drive towards perfection.
He saw then that he was very, very far from perВfection as they understood it, but for once welcomed such a failing, if failing it was.
'No,’ he said, backing away. 'This is… wrong. Can you not feel it?'
Very well,’ said Eidolon. 'You have made your choice and it does not surprise me. So be it. You must leave now, but you are ordered not to speak of what you have seen here. Return to your men, Tarvitz. Isstvan III will be a tough fight,’
'Yes, commander,’ said Tarvitz, relieved beyond measure to be leaving this chamber of horrors.
Tarvitz saluted and all but fled the laboratory, feeling as though the specimens suspended in the tanks were watching him as he went.
As he emerged into the brightness of the apothe-carion, he could not shake the feeling that he had just been tested.
Whether he had passed or failed was another matter entirely.
SEVEN
The God Machine
A favour
Subterfuge
The cold sensation snaking through Cassar's mind was like an old friend, the touch of something reasВsuring. The metallic caress of the Dies Irae as its cortical interfaces meshed with his consciousness would have been terrifying to most people, but it was one of the few constants Moderati Titus Cassar had left in the galaxy.
That and the Lectitio Divinitatus.
The Titan's bridge was dim, lit by ghostly readВouts and telltales that lined the ornate bridge in hard greens and blues. The Mechanicum had been busy, sending cloaked adepts into the Titan, and the bridge was packed with equipment he didn't yet know the purpose of. The deck crew manning the plasma reactor at the war machine's heart had been readying the Titan for battle since the Vengeful Spirit
arrived in the Isstvan system, and every indication was that the Dies Irae's major systems were all funcВtioning better than ever.
Cassar was glad of any advantage the war machine could get, but somewhere deep down he resented the thought of anyone else touching the Titan. The interface filaments coiled deeper into his scalp, sending an unexpected chill through him. The Titan's systems lit up behind Cassar's eyes as though they were a part of his own body. The plasma reactor was ticking over quietly, its pent-up energy ready to erupt into full battle order at his command.
'Motivation systems are a little loose,' he said to himself, tightening the pressure on the massive hydraulic rams in the Titan's torso and legs.
Weapons hot, ammunition loaded,’ he said, knowing that it would take no more than a thought to unleash them.
He had come to regard the power and magnifiВcence of the Dies Irae as the Emperor personified. Cassar had resisted the thought at first, mocking Jonah Aruken's insistence that the Titan had a soul, but it had become more and more obvious why he had been chosen by the saint.
The Lectitio Divinitatus was under threat and the faithful had to be defended. He almost laughed aloud as the thought formed, but what he had seen on the Medicae deck had only deepened the strength of his conviction that he had chosen the right path.
The Titan was a symbol of that strength, an avatar of divine wrath, a god-machine that brought the Emperor's judgement to the sinners of Isstvan.
The Emperor protects,’ whispered Cassar, his voice drifting down through the layers of readouts in his mind, 'and he destroys.' 'Does he now?'
Cassar snapped out of his thoughts and the Titan's systems retreated beneath his consciousness. He looked up in sudden panic, but let out a relieved breath as he saw Moderati Aruken standing over him.
Aruken snapped a switch and the bridge lights flickered to life. 'Be careful who hears you, Titus, now more than ever,’
'I was running through pre-battle checks,’ said Cassar.
'Of course you were, Titus. If Princeps Turnet hears you saying things like that you'll be for it,’
'My thoughts are my own, Jonah. Not even the princeps can deny me that,’
'You really believe that? Come on, Titus. You know full well this cult stuff isn't welcome. We were lucky on the Medicae deck, but this is bigger than you and me and it's getting too dangerous,’
*We can't back away from it now,’ said Cassar, 'not after what we saw,’
'I'm not even sure what I saw,’ said Aruken defenВsively.
'You're joking, surely?'
'No,’ insisted Araken, 'I'm not. Look, I'm telling you this because you're a good man and the Dies Irae will suffer if you're not here. She needs a good crew and you're part of it,’
'Don't change the subject,’ said Cassar. 'We both know that what we saw on the Medicae deck was a miracle. You have to accept that before the Emperor can enter your heart,’
'Listen, I've been hearing some scuttlebutt on the deck, Titus,’ said Aruken, leaning closer. Turner's been asking questions: about us. He's asking about how deep this runs, as though we're part of some hidden conspiracy. It's as if he doesn't trust us any more,’
'Let him come,’
'You don't understand. When we're in battle we're a good team, and if we get… I don't know… thrown in a cell or worse, that team gets broken up and there isn't a better crew for the Dies Irae than us. Don't let this saint business break that up. The Crusade will suffer for it,’
'My faith won't allow me to make compromises, Jonah,’
'Well that's all it is,’ snapped Aruken. 'Your faith,’
'No,’ s.aid Titus, shaking his head. 'It's your faith too, Jonah, you just don't know it yet,’
Aruken didn't answer and slumped into his own command chair, nodding at the readouts in front of Cassar. 'How's she looking?'
'Good. The reactor is ticking over smoothly and the targeting is reacting faster than I've seen it in a
while. The Mechanicum adepts have been tinkering so there are a few more bells and whistles to play with,’
You say that as if it's a bad thing, Titus. The Mechanicum know what they're doing. Anyway, the latest news is that we've got twelve hours to go before the drop. We're going in with the Death Guard on support duties. Princeps Turnet will brief us in a few hours, but it's basically pounding the ground and scaring the shit out of the enemy. Sound good?'
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