by Nick Kyme
‘Now you see why you could not lead…’
Archorian finally appeared in person at the head of his army, striding down between the smouldering ruins with a crackling power sword in hand, flanked by Phoenix Terminators and hunting for his fellow lord commander. Maniacal screams filled the air, punctuated with the gurgling agony of the flesh-scoured.
Eidolon met him at the centre of the burning chem-zone, surrounded by his bodyguard of Kakophoni. They were all reeling, bent double, their armour smoking, their exposed flesh red-raw. The ground at their feet was churned into seething wells of liquid corrosion. Horvia’s distilled foulness had crashed over them in waves, scrubbing the insignia from their armour and leaving what remained melted and distended, a sloughed morass of bubbling gold and lacquer. The Lord Commander Primus’ hair had been burned away, and now hung in blackened clumps from a scabby scalp.
Archorian towered over him, his sword-edge shaking like heat mirage in the swaying air. ‘Rise to face me,’ he said, ‘and I will let you die on your feet.’
For a moment, Eidolon made no move. His Kakophoni looked as if they were blinded, lost in a world of private agony, their exposed flesh bubbling and their limbs twitching. But then they stirred, drawing up to their full height, a jerking movement of terrible unison, as if some gestalt force impelled them. Eidolon grinned, and the tortured skin around his mouth split wide open.
His bodyguards started to laugh, first in scraps, then together – a hideous, unravelling chorus of fervid delight. The chemicals swam across them still, searing and scoring, corroding their way into bloodstreams and reacting with the soup of stimulants already there.
Archorian saw what was happening too late. He raised his blade, his command to attack choked by revulsion, but that was the last movement he ever made.
Eidolon opened his throat. Across the entire battlefield, every warrior of the Kakophoni opened his warped and bloated throat, and the air split apart with a death-scream that tore the towers down to their foundations.
The dust blew apart. The flames gusted out. Armour exploded, shattered by the harmonics that rebounded and amplified across an impossible spectrum. Archorian was annihilated, his body blasted into flying, bloody fragments. Those with him were atomised, scattered as if by a hurricane. Land Raiders rocked on their tracks, their machine-spirits fried by the deluge. More vats burst apart, spraying fresh fuel onto a growing fire.
The Kakophoni kept on screaming, letting their heads rock back and gulping in more of the toxic rain. Eidolon drank deepest and shrieked loudest, his roar flensing flesh from bone. The poison boiled and churned within him, refined by the horrific chemistry of his altered state, and he felt his muscles begin to swell to even greater dimensions, pulsing like venom-sacs filled to bursting.
Once all before them had been destroyed, the Kakophoni began to move again, stalking up through the steaming cadavers, their lusts driven to mania, their appetites ramped up to insatiable levels.
Phodion marched with his lord commander, crunching over the remains of Archorian and barely noticing, his weeping eyes glistening with ecstasy.
‘I can taste it!’ he cried. ‘I can feel it!’
Eidolon grabbed him with both hands, dragging his face close to his own. No icons of the old Emperor’s Children remained on their armour – only nightmarish slurs. The old purple had reacted violently, turning a virulent pink and glowing into the night’s inferno. Armour seals had fused closed, vox-grilles melted into liquid flesh. Everything had dissolved into the flux of delicious agony.
‘This is what we do now,’ Eidolon rasped, feeling his vocal cords burning. ‘This is what we are now. You wanted slaves? You have them. We will burn them, skin them, render them down and re-fill these vats. Horvia is the beginning. We will create poisons that the gods themselves will gag on.’
And then Phodion was laughing again, screaming again, his lungs alive with the full agony of sensation. ‘You are the master of the Legion, lord!’ he gibbered. ‘There is none but you!’
Eidolon let him go. His body throbbing, his eyes stinging, he staggered further up the rise, smelling the burned-pork stench of flesh beneath the chemical reek. He climbed and climbed, ascending the steaming husk of a once great spire, until he could see the full extent of the destruction wrought by his Legion. They were running free now, fuelled with the toxins that ought to have killed them, changed by slow mutation into processors of pain. They were siphoning what remained of the drained tanks, guzzling it, feeding it to their captured enemies, mixing it into new combinations. Soon they would spread out across what remained of Horvia, and the cycle would begin again.
As he watched them rampage, he knew that their desires could never be fulfilled here. Those that survived would seek out ever greater sensations, ever greater debaucheries. They would have to keep going, on and on, never stopping, lest what they had indulged in should kill them. It would take a world of trillions to hope to satisfy such lusts, a world packed so tight with humanity that even a Legion would take a century to harvest them all.
And it was then that he knew. It was then, with the clarity of the intoxicated, that he saw what must come next.
Eidolon, the Soul-Severed, who had once died and now lived again, understood that all was now accomplished that could be accomplished, and that only one goal remained.
The Day of the Turn had come. He looked up into the stars, already dreaming of the violations his Legion would devise.
‘And so to Terra,’ he murmured, feeling a hot line of acidic drool run down his chin. ‘As we have done here, so shall we do there, with the Warmaster’s own blessing.’
DARK COMPLIANCE
John French
‘You cannot conquer a galaxy by the sword, not in many lifetimes… But draw the sword at the right place and at the correct time and you can conquer the universe with a single stroke.’
– attributed to the Emperor, after the First Battle for Luna
The Court of the Governor of the Gilded Worlds
‘Hail, Desigus, Lord of the Gilded Worlds, and Warden of the Aventian Gulf.’
Argonis walks towards the throne. His measured steps echo on the long stone floor. Eyes turn to follow him.
‘Who are you that comes to us out of the night?’ asks the man on the throne. Hard eyes glitter in a gaunt face. Scars crawl over the man’s throat above the gold braiding of his uniform.
‘I am named Argonis, and I speak in the name of Horus, Warmaster of Mankind.’
‘Why do you come here, emissary?’
Argonis halts before the throne.
‘I come for your fealty.’
‘Fealty? Truly, you call it that?’
‘What other word would you give it?’
‘Treachery,’ snarls Desigus. ‘That is what I call it, and that is what it is.’
Argonis does not reply for a moment, but stares at the man for a long heartbeat.
‘You are a brave man,’ he says.
‘And you are–’
‘You fought on Tallisan, and were in the Halo Margins from the beginning to the end. You led the conquest of a star cluster, and cast down the idols of Mesunnar. This system is yours to command because you bled for the right.’
‘Your lips turn such flattery into poison.’
‘Flattery?’ replies Argonis. ‘No. Honesty. I know you, Desigus, though this is the first time we have met. I know your strengths, and your weaknesses. I know that you only let my ship through your defences, and me into your presence, so that you could look me in the eye and call me traitor. I know that you intend me to carry your defiance back to the Warmaster with tongue to speak it, but without eyes to see, or hands to grasp a weapon. All this I know.’
Desigus gives a cold smile.
‘Then what is about to happen will not be a surprise.’
‘And I know that you are a man who never makes a choice lightly,’ says Argonis.
‘I have made my choice. I stand against you. Your promises are false gold.’
‘Promises? I have made no promise. But I will now. Bend your knee. Speak the words of loyalty to your Warmaster. Give him all that is yours to command, and you will live.’
‘Live?’ asks Desigus. ‘That is your promise?’
‘No, my promise is that if you do not then this system will not last a single orbit of its star.’
‘That is–’
‘It is what will happen if I leave here with anything other than your oath of compliance.’
‘No. Even he would not, the resources, the people…’
‘Would he not?’ asks Argonis. ‘Could he not?’
‘The cost in blood, in lives…’
‘It can be done, and it will be done. All your realms, all your warriors, all the billions who you protect – all will be ashes. And you have the power to save them.’
‘You lie.’
Argonis chuckles. ‘I like you, Desigus. So I will give you a gift, one warrior to another.’
‘I spit on your gift!’
‘The gift is this. I will give you understanding so that you can make your choice knowing what you have chosen.’ Argonis pauses. ‘Have you heard of the Accazzar-Beta?’
‘Why?’
‘Because its story is one I would tell you…’
Accazzar-Beta
The emissary stared at Kadith, eyes hard in a blunt face. The sea-green of the emissary’s armour was almost black in the forge light. The banner in his hand was a sheet of woven iron-thread. A golden eye stared from its centre, and a row of rubies hung at its hem. Behind the emissary thirty warriors stood in loose ranks, weapons held low but ready.
‘What is your answer?’ asked the emissary.
Kadith heard the question. Tonal sifters mounted on his audio sensors parsed the words, and projected percentages of arrogance and confidence at the edge of Kadith’s sight. There was no fear in the emissary’s voice, of course. That was the problem with the Legiones Astartes: they were not pure enough to be machines, but like machines they had shed many of humanity’s imperfections. Had they gone the whole way, and shed the rest of their weaknesses, the Imperium would not be at war with itself. But that probably would have made them less effective. And effective they undoubtedly were.
‘Myrmidax Kadith,’ growled the emissary. ‘I will grant you a final opportunity. What is your answer?’
Kadith nodded slowly, and his halo of weapon mechadendrites rippled softly. He glanced from the emissary to where molten metal fell in from apertures in the temple roof. Iron columns rose from the floor amongst the glowing cascades. A figure stood atop each column, the height indicating the rank of the magos who stood on them. Some wore robes, others were hunched figures of plasteel and brass. Automata stood guard at the base of each column, their armour glazed red by the furnace light.
Information buzzed in the air. Had Kadith not shunted his entire noosphere interface into a dead part of his consciousness, the data flow would have been overwhelming. It was irrelevant though. No new data, theory or analysis could change the outcome of this audience.
‘My answer…’ began Kadith, his voice clicking and whirring. ‘My answer as construct representative of Accazzar-Beta, domain of the Omnissiah, is this…’
He watched a small muscle twitch next to the emissary’s eye. The buzz of data transfer had quieted across the chamber. One by one the machines and lesser initiates went silent. All would hear what Kadith said next.
‘Kill protocol.’
The automata exploded into motion.
Bolt-rounds hammered from the legionaries’ guns. The smallest automata were a blur of pistons and armour plates. Explosions burst across them. Kadith watched as a pair of scout-class automata ran on even as their carapaces became shreds of plasteel. He could feel the emissary’s vox signal trying to break free of the temple.
Siege automata stamped forwards from the shadows. One by one they locked into place. The weapons on their shoulders rose up and unfolded like the heads of chrome flowers.
Kadith heard the whine as the weapons built charge.
‘We…’ gasped the emissary into his vox. ‘We… are betrayed!’
The siege automata fired as one. Spheres of plasma thudded through the air and splashed down amongst the ring of warriors. Other automata were still charging forwards, heedless of the fire they ran into. A ragged wave of shots sprayed from the few warriors who had survived the plasma storm. Energised blades snapped out from the automata’s forearms as they struck.
The silence was total and sudden.
‘Warden protocol,’ spoke Kadith.
The automata clanked into a perfect circle around the still cooling remains of Horus’ emissary. Kadith stepped off his pillar, and the thrusters built into his frame caught his descent. He floated down, crimson-and-white robes billowing around him. When he touched the floor, he could still sense the heat from the plasma. He looked down at the heap of armour and flesh at his feet, and then looked up at the eyes of the magi on their pillars.
The throne room was silent as Maloghurst approached his master. The banners and trophies hanging from the high ceiling shifted with the vibration of the Vengeful Spirit as it slid through the void. The Warmaster sat on his throne, his hand resting on the pommel of Worldbreaker, his eyes fixed on a distance only he could see. He had sat like that for the past two and a half hours, thoughts wrapped in silence.
Maloghurst limped to the foot of the throne and stopped. Horus gave no sign of having sensed his adjutant’s presence. He had of course. Nothing escaped the Warmaster’s notice, and none of his actions were without purpose. Maloghurst had learnt both truths many times over.
‘Sire?’ Maloghurst bowed his head and waited for a response. None came. ‘There is no word from your emissary to Myrmidax Kadith on Accazzar-Beta. It has been ten hours now.’
Horus’ eyes shifted from one point of the star field to another, but his face remained as though carved from stone.
‘What is your will, sire?’ asked Maloghurst. ‘Should the fleet begin bombardment of the outer system defences? There is the possibility that other factions on Accazzar-Beta may be turned to our cause if approached. They might even deal with Myrmidax Kadith and his allies themselves, if motivated.’
‘In the earliest days of the crusade, the Seventeenth Legion would send heralds to speak to those who would not accept my father’s truth,’ said Horus. ‘They would go clad in black, and with a skull as a mask.’
‘They were infected with foolishness, even then.’
‘Yes,’ said Horus. ‘But they had a point too, do you not you think, Mal?’
‘That a herald ill received was likely to die?’
‘Yes… perhaps,’ said Horus. ‘But they always have had a flair for symbolism. They realised what their heralds truly were, and what they carried in their wake.’
Maloghurst chuckled. ‘The hypocrisy of the Imperial Truth, if memory serves.’
Horus shook his head once.
‘Death, Mal. Death followed them whether the herald lived or died. Sometimes you need victory.’ Horus raised his left hand. The blades of his fingers glinted as he stared at them. ‘And sometimes you need a symbol. Find Argonis.’
‘Sire, I must caution against that. He is a wayward creature. He has atoned for his failures, but can a broken sword ever be made truly whole?’
‘I know you do not like him, Mal, but he is a rare breed amongst warriors. His blood runs with ruthlessness and defiance, but he also wishes to be accepted, honoured even. I have need of those qualities.’
‘As you will it, sire,’ said Maloghurst, and began to turn away.
‘And bring all the fleet to full battle readiness.’
; ‘You have decided then?’ Maloghurst paused. ‘Accazzar-Beta dies?’
‘No.’ Horus let his hand fall, and shook his head slowly. ‘No. It will live forever.’
‘Reaver Wing launched and running free.’
‘Scythe Claw launched and running free.’
‘Lupus Wing launched and running free.’
Galdron’s strike fighter dropped into the void on the dark side of the moon. Behind it, wings of gunships and bombers slid from the launch bays of the two cruisers that had carried them to the launch point.
‘All squadrons, come into spear formation, on my mark,’ said Galdron into the vox. ‘Mark.’
His fighter looped around, and he felt the tug of G-force pull his flesh. He blinked, and a view from the tail of his interceptor filled his helmet display. He could see thrusters flare as the hundred and eight warcraft of his group pulled into a narrow arrowhead.
‘Looks very pretty, does it not?’ came Scarrix’s voice over the vox. ‘Like a poem of blood written in the night.’
‘Get off this channel, Scarrix,’ snarled Galdron.
‘You have no soul for this kind of murder, Cthonian.’
‘There is no such thing as a soul, you Nostraman gutter discharge.’
‘Is that all the teeth the one-time Luna Wolves now have?’ laughed Scarrix.
Galdron ignored the question and cut the link. His eyes flicked to where a squadron of midnight-clad craft coasted at the edge of the group. Lightning bolts of inlaid silver crawled over their wings. He fancied for a second he could see the kill markings dotting their flanks.
‘They send jackals to run with wolves,’ he muttered.
His lip curled, and he blinked the rear view away. The moon was growing large in front of him. Its surface was a black disc, edged by a thin crescent of red. Behind him, the fast cruisers flipped over and began their burn back to the system’s edge.
‘Approaching drift belt,’ he said into the vox. ‘Cut engines. Directional control only. Sensor baffles to maximum.’