‘Do we go in after him?’ asked Kibre.
‘Do you want to die?’ said Mortarion, rounding on the Widowmaker. ‘Only one other being has passed into the warp and lived. Are you the equal of the Emperor, little man?’
‘How long has it been since he went in?’ said Abaddon.
‘Not long,’ said Aximand. ‘Moments at most.’
‘How do you know that?’
Aximand pointed to the ruby droplets running down the Death Lord’s reaper. ‘His blood is still wet on the blade.’
Abaddon appeared to accept his logic and nodded. He stood before the portal, as though trying to drag Lupercal back with the sheer power of his will.
Kibre stood with him, Abaddon’s man to the last.
Aximand took a breath of deep-earth air. Not even the horror of Davin could have prepared him for this moment. The Warmaster was gone and Aximand didn’t know if he would ever see him again.
A cold shard of ice entered his heart and all the light and colour bled from the world. Was this what the Iron Tenth had felt when Ferrus Manus died?
Aximand felt utterly alone. No matter that his closest brothers stood with him. No matter that they had just won a great victory and fulfilled the Warmaster’s ambitions for this world.
What would they do without the Warmaster?
No use denying that such a thing could ever happen. Fulgrim’s slaying of Manus proved a primarch could die.
Who else but the Warmaster had the strength of will to lead the Sons of Horus? Who among the true sons could achieve what Horus had failed to achieve?
Horus is weak. Horus is a fool.
The words struck him like a blow. They were without source, yet Aximand knew they had issued from beyond the black gate. Delivered straight to the heart of his skull like an executioner’s dagger.
He blinked and saw a time a long time ago or yet to pass, an echoing empty wasteland of a world. He imagined a death. Alone, far away from everything he had once held dear, dying with a former brother at his feet whose cruel wounds bled out onto the dust of a nameless rock.
Breath sounded in his ear. Cold and measured, the breath of nightmares he’d thought banished with the ghost of Garviel Loken.
A fist of iron took Aximand’s heart and crushed it within his chest. He couldn’t breathe. Transhuman dread. He’d felt it briefly on Dwell, and now it all but overpowered him.
The feeling passed as a bitter wind blew from the gateway.
‘Stand to!’ yelled Abaddon. ‘Something’s happening.’
Every weapon in the chamber snapped to aim at the portal. Its surface no longer rippled with the gentle fall of raindrops, but the violence of an ocean tempest.
Horus Lupercal fell through the oil-black surface of the gate and crashed to his knees before Abaddon and Kibre. Behind him, the darkness of the gate vanished with a bang of displaced air. Only a solid wall of mountain rock remained, as though the gate had never existed.
Aximand rushed forward to help them as the Warmaster held himself upright on all fours. His back heaved with breath, like a man trapped in a vacuum suddenly returned to atmosphere.
‘Sir,’ said Abaddon. ‘Sir, are you all right?’
Even through his gauntlets, Aximand felt the glacial ice of the Warmaster’s flesh.
‘You’re still here?’ said Horus without looking up, his voice little better than a parched whisper. ‘You waited for me... after all this time...’
‘Of course we waited,’ said Aximand. ‘You’ve only been gone moments.’
‘Moments...?’ said Horus, with a fragile, almost frantic edge to his words. ‘Then everything... everything’s still to be done.’
Aximand looked over at Abaddon, seeing the same lingering doubt in the face of the First Captain. None of them had the faintest clue as to what might happen beyond the gate or what the consequences of venturing into such an alien environment might be.
They had let their lord and master walk into the unknown and not one of them had known what to expect.
That lack of forethought now horrified Aximand.
‘Brother,’ said Mortarion, cutting through Aximand’s self-recrimination. ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’
Horus stood to his full height and Aximand’s eyes widened at the sight of him.
The Warmaster had aged.
Cthonia had shaped him, moulded him into a warrior of flint-hard lines and cruel beauty. Two centuries of war had left no mark upon him, but moments beyond the gate had done what the passage of time could not.
Silver streaked the stubble upon his scalp, and the grooves at the corners of his eyes were deeper and more pronounced.
The face Aximand had devoted his life to serving was now that of an ancient warrior who had fought for longer than he could ever have imagined, who had seen too much horror and whose campaigning days had bled him dry.
Yet the fire and purpose in his eyes was brighter than ever.
Nor was that fire simply confined to his eyes.
What Aximand had taken to be cold flesh was the power of the empyrean distilled and honed within the body of an immortal being. Horus stood taller, fuller and more powerfully than before. Lupercal had always found Warmaster to be an awkward fit, a term never fully bedded in or taken as read.
Now he owned the title, as though it had been his long before there was any such office to take. He was now, naturally, and without equivocation, the Warmaster.
Aximand, Abaddon and Kibre backed away from Horus, each of them dropping to their knees in wonder as the power filling the primarch bloomed in the material world.
Even Mortarion, that most truculent of primarchs, bent the knee to Horus in a way he had never done for the Emperor.
Horus grinned and all trace of the war-weary ancient was banished in the blink of an eye. In his place was a mortal god, brighter and more dangerous than ever. Filled with a power that only one other being in all existence had wielded before.
‘Yes,’ said Horus. ‘I found exactly what I was looking for.’
TWENTY-FOUR
Leaving Lupercalia
Ill met by moonlight
Hunter’s eye
Lupercalia was burning.
The Sons of Horus had not lit the fires, but Aximand watched them spread through the knotted streets of the lower valley as the Warmaster’s Stormbird cleared the citadel’s walls. The Knights of House Devine stalked the streets of their city like vengeful predators, burning and killing with wanton abandon.
One machine, a burn-scarred thing with a lashing whip weapon danced in the light of the revel fires, its warhorn hooting as though its pilot were drunk.
Aximand forgot the Knights as the angle of the gunship’s ascent became steeper and a number of Thunderhawks took up station on either wing.
‘It’s strange to be leaving a world so soon after arriving,’ said Falkus Kibre, scrolling through a data-slate bearing a force disposition assay. ‘Especially when there’s still armies to fight.’
‘No one worth fighting,’ grunted Abaddon from farther along the compartment. He’d said little since they’d emerged from the catacombs beneath the citadel. ‘The fight before Lupercalia destroyed the best of them.’
Kibre shook his head. ‘Orbital surveys say there’s tens of thousands of soldiers and dozens of armoured regiments have fled across the mountains on the edges of the southern steppe.’
Abaddon said nothing. Aximand knew Ezekyle better than most and knew when to leave well alone.
This was one such moment.
‘The Kushite Eastings and Northern Oceanic were largely wiped out at Lupercalia and Avadon,’ continued Kibre who, as Abaddon’s second, should have known not to press the issue. ‘But van Valkenberg and Malbek are still unaccounted for.’
‘Then you go down and bloody finish them!’ snapped Abaddon.
Kibre took Abaddon’s outburst stoically and replaced the slate in its niche.
‘Ezekyle,’ said Kibre. ‘We fought the hardest down ther
e, you and I.’
Aximand scowled at that. The Fifth Company had fought their way through the XIII Legion to break the line, and they’d done it without the support of an orbital weapons platform.
‘We faced a bloody Imperator and lived,’ continued the Widowmaker, ‘So don’t make me come up there and slap you for being unmindful of what we did.’
Aximand revised his assumption that he knew Ezekyle better than most when, instead of killing Kibre, Abaddon grunted in laughter.
‘You’re right, Falkus,’ said Abaddon. ‘It does feel somehow... unfinished.’
That at least, Aximand understood. Like all true fighting men down through the ages, he hated to abandon a mission before it was finished. But Ezekyle had things wrong.
‘It is finished,’ he said.
Abaddon and Kibre looked back down the fuselage at him.
‘We came here for Lupercal,’ he said. ‘This was his mission, not ours. And it’s done.’
‘We’re just going to have to fight those men again on the walls of Terra,’ said Kibre.
‘You’re wrong,’ said the Warmaster, emerging from the pilot’s compartment and sitting on the dropmaster’s seat. ‘Those men will be dead soon. Mortarion and Grulgor will see to that.’
Horus had always been a demi-god among men, but looking into the Warmaster’s eyes now was like looking into the heart of a star on the verge of becoming a self-immolating supernova.
‘We’re leaving the Fourteenth Legion to finish the job?’ said Kibre.
Horus nodded, shifting his bulk on the seat. It was patently too small for him, more so now that his natural presence was enhanced by his journey across the dimensions.
‘Molech now belongs to Mortarion and Fulgrim.’
‘Fulgrim?’ said Aximand. ‘Why does the Phoenician get a share of the spoils?’
‘He played his part,’ said Horus. ‘Though I doubt he’ll remember his time here fondly. Plasmic fire to the face tends to be an unpleasant experience. Or so Lorgar told me from Armatura.’
‘What was Fulgrim doing?’ asked Aximand.
Horus didn’t answer immediately and Aximand took a moment to study the chiselled lines of the Warmaster’s face. The extended age Aximand saw in his gene-father still unnerved him. He dearly wanted to ask Lupercal what he’d found, what wonders he’d seen and how far along the road he’d travelled.
One day, perhaps, but not today.
‘Fulgrim reaped a crop sown here many years ago,’ said Horus. ‘But enough of my brother, let’s savour the moment ahead.’
‘What moment?’ said Kibre.
‘A reunion of sorts,’ said Horus. ‘The confraternity of the old Mournival is about to be remade.’
Lupercal’s Court. The dark jewel in the crown of Peeter Egon Momus.
If Loken’s return to the Vengeful Spirit had been hard before, moving stealthily through its hidden corridors and secret niches, being within Lupercal’s Court was an exquisite torture. Loken had stood at the Warmaster’s side when they had planned the Isstvan campaign.
He’d been proud then, prouder even than the day he’d been chosen to be one of the XVI Legion. All he felt now was confusion.
Gerradon and Noctua had dragged them through the ship, marching them onto a pneu-train bound for the prow. At first, he’d thought they were heading to the strategium, but after debarking at the Museum of Conquest, he’d realised exactly where they were going.
The high ceiling was still hung with uncommon banners, some fresh, some mouldering and dusty. Shadows clung to the thick pillars, making it impossible to tell if they were alone. The twenty-three Luperci – he’d counted them as they passed through the Museum of Conquest – spread out and marched them towards the towering basalt throne at the far end of the chamber.
‘Kneel,’ said Gerradon, and there was little to do but obey.
Iacton, Bror and Severian were to Loken’s left, Varren, Tarchon, Rubio and Voitek to his right. The Luperci surrounded them like executioners. They knelt facing the throne, looking out into the vastness of space through the one addition to the chamber, a cathedral-like window of stained glass.
Pinpricks of light from distant stars glittered at unimaginable distances, and Molech’s moons painted the floor in lozenges of milky radiance.
‘Nice throne,’ said Varren. ‘The traitor still thinks he’s a king, then. Should have seen this coming long before.’
Ger Gerradon kicked the former World Eater in the back. Varren sprawled, and bared his teeth, reaching for an axe that wasn’t there. Four Luperci kept their bolters trained on him as others hauled him back to his knees.
‘A king?’ said Gerradon with a grin Loken wanted to split wide open. ‘You World Eaters always did think small. Horus Lupercal doesn’t think he’s a king. Haven’t you felt it? He’s a god now.’
Severian laughed and Grael Noctua backhanded a bolter across his face. Still laughing, Severian rolled onto his side and picked himself up. Loken wanted to mock Gerradon’s theatrics, but he could barely take a breath. That he would soon be face to face with the Warmaster was sending his sense memory into overdrive.
The corners of Lupercal’s Court were shadowed ruins where the dead of Isstvan gathered, hungry for flesh. The moonlight painting the floor was the flash of atomic firestorms, and the breath at his ear was that of his killer.
‘Loken,’ said Qruze.
He didn’t answer, keeping his gaze fixed on the black throne.
‘Garviel!’
Loken blinked and lifted his head.
The great iron doors to Lupercal’s Court were opening.
And there he was, looking right at Loken with paternal pride.
His gene-father, his Warmaster.
Horus Lupercal.
The Warmaster had always been the mightiest of the primarchs, a fact acknowledged by all Sons of Horus, though hotly debated by legionaries from most other Legions.
To see him now would surely end that debate.
Horus was possessed of a powerful dynamism, a charge that passed from him to those he beheld. To be in his presence was to know that gods walked among men. A hyperbolic sentiment, but one borne out by those fortunate enough to have met him. That power, that essence was magnified now.
It was magnified a hundredfold, and it all but emptied Loken’s reservoir of hate to keep from throwing himself at the Warmaster’s feet and begging for forgiveness.
His feet, look at his feet.
A piece of advice he’d been given when Lupercal still served the Emperor. As true now as it was then. Loken kept his eyes down. He took a breath and held it. His heart thundered, a hammer beating on the fused bone shield of his ribcage.
His mouth was dry, like the eve of his first battle.
‘Look at me, Garviel,’ said Horus, and every pain Loken had suffered since the first bombs had fallen on Isstvan was washed away in that moment of recognition.
He couldn’t help but obey.
The Warmaster was an all-conquering hero, clad in armour as black as wilderness space. The volcanic eye on his chest was slitted and veined with black, his claws unsheathed like a jungle predator closing on a kill.
His face was as heroically self-aware as Loken remembered.
Loken knew other warriors accompanied Horus, but they were as ghosts in the obscuring corona of the Warmaster’s presence. He heard their shocked voices and understood that he knew them, and they him, but he could not tear his gaze from his former commander-in-chief.
The urge to remain kneeling through fealty rather than captivity was overwhelming.
Horus said, ‘Stand. All of you.’
Loken did so, and told himself it was because he chose to.
None of the other pathfinders followed his example. He faced the Warmaster alone. Just as he’d always known he would. However this ended, now or in years to come, it would come down to just two warriors locked in a fight to the death.
The figures surrounding the Warmaster emerged from his shadow, and Loken
felt his choler flare at the sight of his former Mournival brothers.
Ezekyle, scarred and bellicose, hatred etched on his eyes.
Horus Aximand, pale and wide-eyed, his face pressed onto his skull like badly set clay. He looked at Loken, not with hatred, but with... fear?
Was it possible for Little Horus to fear anything?
Falkus Kibre, hulking and unsubtle. Following Abaddon’s lead.
Nothing new there.
Grael Noctua took his place with them, and Loken immediately understood the skewed dynamic between them. A reborn Mournival, but one with its humours grotesquely out of balance.
‘I never thought to see you again, Garviel,’ said Horus.
‘Why would you?’ said Loken, mustering his reserves of defiance to speak with clarity and strength. ‘I died when you betrayed everything the Luna Wolves ever stood for. When you murdered Isstvan Three and the loyal sons of four Legions.’
Horus nodded slowly. ‘And despite all that, you come back to the Vengeful Spirit. Why is that?’
‘To stop you.’
‘Is that what you told Malcador?’ said Horus, before turning to regard the rest of the pathfinders. ‘Is it what he told you?’
‘It’s the truth,’ said Loken. ‘You have to be stopped.’
‘With what, a squad?’ said Horus, cocking an eyebrow. ‘I don’t think so. The galaxy isn’t a sterile place without a love of melodrama, Garviel. You know as well as I that this doesn’t end with kill teams or assassins or a pre-emptive strike thousands of light years from Terra. It ends with me looking into my father’s eyes, my hands around His neck, and showing Him everything he loves burned to ash by His lies.’
‘You’re insane,’ said Bror Tyrfingr. ‘The Wolf King will stop you, he’ll carve his name on your heart and give your bones to the wyrd to tell the future for eternity.’
Horus snapped his fingers and said, ‘Russ? Ah, so that’s what this is.’
Loken willed Bror to shut up, but the damage was already done.
‘Leman didn’t slake his thirst for blood on Prospero?’ continued Horus with a rueful shake of his head. ‘I wonder, does the Emperor even know you’re here or did the Wolf King set this up himself? He always was eager to spill his brothers’ blood. Did he convince Malcador that sending you here was the only way to end the war before it got to Terra?’
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