by John French
‘Kneel,’ said Perturabo, without turning.
Volk knelt and bowed his head. Behind him the blast doors ground closed. Forrix remained standing a step behind him. He heard the primarch turn. He shivered inside his armour, nerves pricking. Perturabo was looking at him. He could feel it. It was like the moment an enemy weapon system locked on to you, and you could feel death in the scream of the sensor systems.
‘The emissary called Argonis…’ said the primarch. Volk heard the name and wondered why Forrix had lied. This was about his failure on Tallarn. This was about censure. ‘You know him.’
Volk swallowed in a dry throat, his mind whirling. Argonis was one of the Sons of Horus, a war chieftain of the XVI Legion during the Great Crusade. He was Cthonian born, ruthless, brutal, direct and the finest pilot Volk had ever seen. They had shared command of the air elements in three campaigns as part of the Keltius Conquest Fleet. They had trained together, fought together and killed together – if such bonds could exist between legionaries of different blood, they had been friends. That had been before the Warmaster had begun the war against the Emperor, before the massacre of Legions and the burning of the past. They had met once since, on Tallarn. It had been a reunion that had resulted in Volk’s censure.
‘I fought with him, my lord,’ said Volk. ‘I know him.’
‘He will trust you?’
Volk thought of Argonis grinning his rare, wolf’s grin.
‘Perhaps, lord.’
‘And you – do you trust him?’
‘No,’ said Volk without hesitation.
‘Why?’
‘You should never trust a sword that is too sharp, lord.’
‘Just so,’ said Perturabo. ‘And would you attempt to renew your bonds of brotherhood at my command?’
‘Of course, my lord.’
‘And be his shadow so that you would know his thoughts and motives?’
‘Yes, lord.’
‘And at the will of your lord, knowing that he was the representative of the Warmaster, would you take his life?’
Volk saw again the target rune blink red over the image of Argonis’ Storm Eagle as it rose above the curve of Tallarn’s sphere. Was this a trick or a trap? Was he condemning himself to further punishment? To death?
I am iron, he thought, and iron is truth.
‘Yes,’ he replied. The humming buzz of the data screens filled the silence that followed.
‘Rise,’ said Perturabo.
Volk stood and met the gaze of his primarch. It took all his will not to raise his hands to defend himself, not to run. His instincts screamed that this was death – death and annihilation looking at him with a gaze as cold as dead stars.
‘Is Argonis returning to us?’ he asked, forcing the words from his lips.
Perturabo gave a single, small, shake of his head. Weapon mounts on his wrists purred as their mechanisms cycled.
‘He is already here, and he brings word from the Warmaster.’
Three
Maloghurst
‘Sire? Can you hear my voice?’ Maloghurst knelt beneath the throne, at the Warmaster’s feet. His features were a pale sketch in the shadowed collar of his armour. The lights of warships glimmered behind the viewport, brighter than the distant stars.
‘Sire?’ he said again, and the word seemed to drain to silence as it left his lips. The wound in the Warmaster’s side had opened again. Blood dripped from the maw of torn flesh, its slow inhalations sucking the sound from the air as it breathed. Patterns covered the floor around Maloghurst, drawn in ash, salt and blood. Candles burned in stands made from dried human hands and polished skulls. He held a dagger in his left hand, the blade red from the cut it had made in the bare flesh of his right palm. Blood dripped slowly from his fingers. He had been kneeling before the throne for six hours, speaking words, calling up every scrap of power that he had stolen from the warp in the last years, searching for a way to coax even the smallest reaction from Horus. None of it had worked. Occult formulae had drained to nothing, and his calls to the cardinal powers and principals of the warp had been met with silence. It was as though Horus sat at the centre of a vortex, a silent storm that swallowed all strength around it. He had been this way for the last weeks, not moving from the throne, rising to brief moments of lucidity only to lapse back into a silent fugue.
‘Very well,’ he said, shaking his head to himself, feeling fatigue shake down his nerves. ‘Very well…’
He drew and let out a breath. He was out of time. Even with all the power at his command, the ability to continue without sleep and a will that could crush iron, he could not outrun the flow of time. A web of control, of power and responsibility waited for him as soon as he stepped from the throne room. At this moment, every finely balanced thread of decision and consequence led to him.
It was strange, he thought – so many amongst the Legion and beyond thought of him as a manipulator, as a creature who hoarded and wielded power. And now the power was his, pressing down on him with all its weight, tangling him in its strangling threads. Those who called him ‘the Twisted’ would have thought this circumstance one he would relish. He bent to clear the ritual equipment and felt exhaustion rise through him in a fever wave. Bubbles of colour spun and popped at the edge of his vision. He breathed hard. For all of the strength gifted to him by his gene-crafted body, he could not shake the weariness draining him. It was not natural, he knew that, just as the sleep that overpowered him and the dreams it brought were not natural.
The remains of his arcane work gone, he picked up his sceptre of authority, bowed to the immobile form of Horus and hobbled to the side door. Kibre and four of the Justaerin were waiting.
Maloghurst answered Kibre’s question before it was asked.
‘Just as before.’
Kibre nodded, and the black-armoured Terminators passed into the throne room to stand guard over their silent lord. Kibre paused as he passed Maloghurst.
‘How long can this go on?’
Maloghurst met his gaze. He wondered if the exhaustion showed in his face. He tried to think of a careful answer but none came.
‘I do not know,’ he said.
Kibre held his gaze for a long moment, then turned away and went into the throne room.
Maloghurst walked alone to his own chambers. He used side passages and sealed tunnels, careful to avoid the areas where the petitioners gathered to plead their cases to the Warmaster or offer gifts. Horus rarely received any but the most exalted of his subjects; Maloghurst usually sat in his place. He had kept to that duty in the last weeks – it was vital that no one noticed the slightest pause in the turning of the wheels of power.
But Lorgar… Why was he here? He was a primarch, and all of Maloghurst’s subtlety would not be able to persuade him that everything was well indefinitely. Lorgar knew that something was wrong with Horus; he had practically said that he knew when he had arrived. Maloghurst wondered which daemon had whispered what to the lord of the Word Bearers, then dismissed the thought. It was irrelevant. He needed to rouse Horus. He needed to understand what malady had fallen on the Warmaster. He needed to–
‘Well met.’ The voice rumbled from the shadows ahead of him. Maloghurst’s gaze snapped up. He reached for the bolt pistol at his waist, even as he cursed himself for allowing his fatigue to blind him to danger. ‘There is no need for that,’ said Zardu Layak as he stepped into view. ‘After all, are we not brothers?’
The darkness peeled back from the Word Bearer, like smoke blown by a wind. Layak’s two silent bodyguards stood a stride behind their master, their hands hanging loosely at their sides. Maloghurst felt his skin prickle inside his armour as he looked at the blank eyepieces of their helms. Layak stopped an arm’s length from Maloghurst. The two held each other’s gaze: the hunched equerry in storm sea-green with the Eye of Horus capping the sceptre in his hand, the Word Bearer
in grey, his staff a broken moon clutching a bronze censer. The rows of eyes set in Layak’s horned mask-helm glowed like coals.
Maloghurst felt the anger flare brighter in him, blurring with his fatigue. He should be silent, he should bite his tongue.
‘You are the guest of the Warmaster,’ said Maloghurst, his voice low, ‘but if you do that again, I will cut your heart out and throw you into the void with it in your mouth.’
One of Layak’s twin guards turned its head to stare at Maloghurst.
Layak did not move for a second, then tilted his head to the side, like a bird watching a snake.
‘It’s never far beneath the skin with your breed, is it? The ghost of Cthonia waiting to repay words with blood.’
‘I knew Lorgar’s previous favourites,’ Maloghurst smiled. ‘Ask them.’
‘Erebus’ error is not one I shall repeat,’ said Layak.
Maloghurst kept himself perfectly still. He was being played with, he knew. He did not know why, but whatever game this was he had lost the opening move.
‘Return to your quarters,’ he said, with careful control, and stepped forwards to walk through the space occupied by Layak and his two companions. For a second, he thought Layak would stand his ground, but then the Word Bearers stepped aside. Maloghurst moved past them.
‘I can help you,’ said Layak from behind him. Maloghurst kept moving. The ploy was obvious now. Layak had been sent by Lorgar to learn what he could about what had happened to Horus. The Word Bearer had provoked him to anger, destabilising his thoughts, making him less cautious, more vulnerable to the true thrust of his purpose. Maloghurst almost smiled at its crudity and kept walking. The ploy had almost worked. He was too tired by far. ‘I can help the Warmaster. I know what malady holds him silent on his throne.’
Maloghurst stopped.
I should not listen, he thought. Never trust – never! Always see the knives in the shadows, the murder in a smile. But… but…
He turned slowly and looked at Layak.
‘That is why Lord Aurelian is here. Why I am here. We know.’
‘There is nothing to know,’ said Maloghurst.
‘No one can hear us, Maloghurst, be not afraid. This is a matter between us alone. We can help.’
‘If what you say is true then Lorgar would have made this… supposition directly on his arrival.’
‘Trust,’ said Layak. ‘He wished to see if you trusted him.’
‘I trust no one.’
‘Then you are wise.’
Maloghurst remained silent. He thought of Erebus, the disgraced High Chaplain of the Word Bearers, of the Davinites and the lore they wielded, and that he had taken from them. He was at the edge of his ability and knowledge, and could see nothing beyond.
‘Tell me what you know,’ he said.
Layak
‘This is not sanctioned, Maloghurst,’ boomed Falkus Kibre as he stepped from the shadows pooling beside the door to Horus’ throne room. Maloghurst turned as hulking figures stepped into sight with a buzzing growl of activating armour. Layak hissed a syllable of power under his breath. Coiling darkness enveloped him. Beside him, Kulnar and Hebek gripped the hilts of their sheathed swords. Cracks spidered across their gauntlets, and red fire glowed from beneath. Only Lorgar did not react. The primarch remained still, looking up at the doors to the throne room, his face impassive.
‘You shall not pass,’ growled Kibre as he stamped forwards. Mirror coins rattled on the plates of his black Terminator armour. Five Justaerin Terminators came with him, eyes red in blank helms. More came from the dark behind them. They had deactivated their armour and stood as silent as statues in the gloom. Layak’s sight pulsed and spun with runes as his helm struggled to grasp the aura of their souls. He should have sensed the presence of the Terminators, but he had not. The closer they had come to the throne room, the less Layak had been able to sense in the Sea of Souls. The whispers of the lesser daemons bound to his will had quieted in his mind, and even his blade slaves had advanced reluctantly. It was as though a storm waited beyond the doors, a storm of such force that its winds stole all sound around it.
‘Do not interfere, Kibre,’ rasped Maloghurst. ‘This is for the Warmaster.’
The Justaerin levelled their weapons. Kibre raised a plasma blaster. A shrill whine cut the air as the charge reached a peak. Layak could see the shackled rage that burned at the core of Kibre’s soul. It was a crimson cloak rippling as it dragged behind him. He was afraid, Layak realised – not in the way that mortals were but in the way that even the strongest fortress could be shaken if the ground beneath it cracked.
Good, he thought. The seeds begin to bloom.
‘You dare threaten–’ began Maloghurst.
‘I protect the Warmaster,’ boomed Kibre. ‘Who are you serving, brother? What words have they whispered to you? What lies have they paid you with?’
Maloghurst’s face pulled taut over his skull. His crooked hands shifted on his staff of authority. Control radiated from the small movement. Layak found himself thinking that of the two, the hulking warrior in black and the hunched equerry, he knew who was the more dangerous.
‘Peace.’ The word was low but fell like the blow of a hammer. Kibre’s gaze jerked up. The aim of the Justaerin faltered. ‘We are brothers,’ said Lorgar. ‘We are warriors in one cause, and of one mind. Noble Falkus, there is no danger here for you to protect your lord from. Your devotion does the Warmaster honour.’ Lorgar stepped towards the Justaerin commander. Kibre’s plasma blaster lowered. The primarch looked down at the Terminator. ‘I only wished to see my Warmaster before I departed. Maloghurst has broken no vow, and I will not ask you to break your oath of protection. Let there be no division here.’
Layak could feel the force of the words. It was not like the power of sorcery or the manipulation of a trickster. It was as if the universe reformed around them, as though they were truth and creation.
Lorgar looked around at the Justaerin. His serene gaze touched them, and their guns lowered, just as their master’s had.
‘Would that all the warriors of the Warmaster were as you are. You humble us all.’
He bowed his head briefly. And then, incredibly, the black-armoured Terminators knelt.
Maloghurst and Kibre had not moved, but Lorgar turned to them.
‘I came to serve the Warmaster’s will, to help. I would ask how I can do that, but I feel I know what best can be done. Horus called for us to gather at Ullanor. It shall be as he commanded. But there are those who will not answer the call. Curze in his pit of bones and self-pity. Angron, elevated by the gods, hears nothing besides the call of sacred slaughter. And Fulgrim… Where is he now?’
Maloghurst gripped his staff, as though steadying himself. He sucked a breath. Ragged shadows billowed and frayed around him.
‘Messages and emissaries have been sent.’
‘Words that cannot be heard,’ said Lorgar lightly, ‘messages that will go unheeded. If you want my lost brothers to answer, then you must send the others to bring them back. You must send primarchs to treat with primarchs.’ Maloghurst was silent for a second and then nodded. Lorgar gave a brief smile and continued. ‘Perturabo… He will obey.’
‘I have already sent an emissary to him,’ said Maloghurst.
‘Then contact that emissary – you have the means, I know.’
‘And send him where? He and Fulgrim–’
‘No, not Fulgrim,’ said Lorgar. ‘Angron. Only iron can shackle my exalted brother now.’
‘Curze?’
‘Is Alpharius still paying you the courtesy of taking commands?’
Maloghurst shook his head.
‘He is being put to other use.’
‘Then perhaps Konrad is beyond reach, or hope, already. I have long feared that inevitability.’
‘I have sent emissaries to his last-
known location,’ said Maloghurst.
‘No one you care for, I hope,’ said Lorgar. Maloghurst gave a hunch-shouldered shrug.
‘And what of Fulgrim?’ asked the equerry. ‘Even his own Legion has not seen him since he went into the rift beyond Cadia.’
‘The Eye of Terror, that is what Perturabo calls it. The realm of the gods and their angels, and only the shriven do not fear to tread there.’ Lorgar paused and brought his open palm to his chest. The polished steel and crimson lacquer of his gauntlet gleamed in the scraps of light. ‘I shall find Fulgrim and bring him to Ullanor. You have my oath.’
Maloghurst, for the first time since Lorgar had come aboard, bowed his head.
‘You have my thanks, Lord Aurelian, for your knowledge, wisdom and loyalty.’
Lorgar’s face remained unmoving.
‘It is all that I can give. Guard our Warmaster. We shall meet again at Ullanor.’ Then he turned from the still-closed doors of the throne room and walked away. Around him, the kneeling Justaerin stood. Layak was still a moment longer, holding Kibre and Maloghurst steady in his sight.
Volk
‘Deliver your message, emissary,’ said Perturabo as Volk entered the Oculum.
The dawn light was cutting across the mountaintops beyond the crystal windows of the summit fastness. This was the highest point of the fortress the Legion had gouged into the Onyx Mountain. Brushed adamantine girders held together a dome of metre-thick crystal panels. The floor was the stone of the mountain, sliced through and ground down to a mirror finish. Light shone through the dome and reflected off the grey floor in multicoloured beams. Volk had never been here but knew that it had been designed by the Lord of Iron himself. Its reality surprised him; it was sublime. Even the oily crackle of void shields and the smoke rising from the burning mountain flanks seemed transmuted into something that felt divine, as though to stand here were to look down on reality like one of the false gods of ancient legend.
The Oculum’s maker seemed out of place in its splendour, a blunt intrusion of metal and menace into serenity. The arming mechanisms of his weapons clicked and cycled like twitching muscles. Power arced up and down focusing coils.