Angel Exterminatus

by Graham McNeill

  Fulgrim was dressed more like the brother he had last seen on Isstvan V, in his purple battle armour, its subtle shades worked through the deepening hues of each plate. A fur-trimmed cloak hung asymmetrically from his shoulders and the black leather-wrapped handle of his golden sword – the selfsame blade Ferrus had crafted in the Terrawatt forges of Mount Narodnya – hung at his hip.

  His brother’s white hair was threaded into numerous elaborate braids that came together at the nape of his neck in a winding coil laid across his right shoulder like a sleeping serpent. In the light of the encircling flames, Fulgrim’s eyes appeared even darker, and Perturabo was relieved to see that none of his brother’s captains had accompanied him to this tale-telling, only the eldar creature he had named Karuchi Vohra.

  ‘I knew you would not disappoint me, brother,’ said Fulgrim, raising his arms and turning in a slow circle to encompass all that had been built for him. ‘It is a triumph of the architect’s art and worthy of the greatest dramas. Tell me, now that you have built one of your dreams, does it match the vision in your head when you first conceived it?’

  ‘It’s close,’ said Perturabo.

  ‘But not perfect?’

  ‘Nothing ever is.’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Fulgrim, lowering his arms and coming forwards to embrace him.

  The two primarchs came together to thunderous applause that echoed around the Thaliakron as though it might never end. Fulgrim slapped him heartily on the back and kissed his cheeks, but the gesture was alien to Perturabo, and he did not know how to respond. The scent of the oils worked into Fulgrim’s hair was strong, and Perturabo took a breath of its seductive perfumes.

  ‘The cloak looks good on you, brother,’ said Fulgrim with a grin.

  They came apart, though Fulgrim kept a grip on one of Perturabo’s arms, as though reluctant to break the moment of closeness they had just shared. He raised his other arm high, basking in the crowd’s adulation, as though feeding on their devotion.

  ‘We are gods, brother!’ shouted Fulgrim, and the crowd screamed its agreement.

  Perturabo’s enthusiasm for his brother’s theatrics began to diminish, and he pulled his arm from Fulgrim’s grip. This overt display of brotherhood had all the appearance of an ambush, and Perturabo’s first instinct was to walk away from it.

  Fulgrim stood before him, his voice lowered to a whisper that not even the superlative acoustics of the Thaliakron would fling out into the audience.

  ‘Where are your hammer bearers?’ asked Fulgrim, noting the absence of the Iron Circle. ‘They would look mighty in such a place.’

  ‘They are below,’ said Perturabo, taking a step away from Fulgrim. Though he had enjoyed the fleeting moment of brotherhood, he did not enjoy close physical presence.

  ‘Why automata, brother?’ asked Fulgrim, almost as an aside. ‘Why not warriors of flesh and blood who are not slaves to some Mechanicum doctrina-wafer?’

  ‘Robotic guardians never sleep, never let down their shields and will never betray me.’

  ‘But they will never be as responsive as mortal guardians, they will never give their last drop of blood or fight to protect you out of love.’

  ‘Love? What has love to do with anything?’

  Fulgrim gave a crooked smile as though amused that Perturabo should even ask such a question. ‘No bodyguards can be counted upon who do not love that which they protect.’

  ‘And your Phoenix Guard love you?’ asked Perturabo, harsher than he intended.

  ‘They do indeed,’ said Fulgrim, raising his voice once again. ‘I am the Phoenician, beloved by all and the star around which my warriors orbit. Without me they would have no purpose, and a warrior without purpose is not worthy of breath.’

  The audience cheered again, and Perturabo nodded absently, circling around to the right to better appraise the robed eldar who skulked in Fulgrim’s shadow. Seen in this light, his eye for weakness saw a hollowness to the alien’s frame, as though from some hunger that could never quite be satisfied. Though veiled by his voluminous hood, the eldar’s features were sculptural and handsome, his lips full and his violet hair lustrous. Yet Perturabo sensed something… missing in him.

  Very well, if Fulgrim wished theatre, then Perturabo would indulge him.

  ‘You call yourself Karuchi Vohra?’ he said.

  The eldar nodded and said, ‘It is more accurately a title than a name. I was a healer. In the Bielerai dialect it means–’

  ‘I know what it means,’ said Perturabo abruptly. ‘It means “the ender of suffering”.’

  ‘My lord understands the eldar tongue?’ asked Vohra.

  ‘One of many I speak,’ answered Perturabo in the alien’s own language.

  Both Fulgrim and Vohra looked surprised, and Perturabo took a moment to enjoy that.

  ‘Or,’ he said, switching to a proto-speech of guttural barks and grunts, ‘we could speak in the language of the greenskins.’

  Fulgrim laughed and said, ‘You are a wonder to me, brother. I had not known you possessed a talent for linguistics.’

  ‘I’ve spent my life at the business end of a siege, digging trenches and razing cities, so it’s easy for you to forget I have a mind as engineered as any of our brothers,’ said Perturabo, trying not to sound disappointed at such a failure of perception. ‘I may not have the warp-lore of Magnus or the war-craft of Horus, but being underestimated is one of my greatest weapons.’

  Fulgrim smiled and said, ‘I shall never make that mistake.’

  ‘No, I think you will,’ said Perturabo, turning on his heel and folding his arms across his broad chest. ‘Now, tell me what is so important that it required my Legion to raise this amphitheatre to hear it.’

  ‘It is a story of the eldar gods and their wars,’ said Fulgrim. ‘Of a creature so terrible and so beautiful that its brothers locked it away from time and memory.’

  ‘The Angel Exterminatus?’ ventured Perturabo.

  ‘Yes,’ said Vohra. ‘The Angel Exterminatus.’

  Anger touched Perturabo. ‘You had me build the Thaliakron just to tell me alien legends?’

  ‘It is no legend, brother,’ said Fulgrim, coming forwards to grip Perturabo’s arm. ‘It is a truth hidden in the grave of its doom, a weapon of such power that the stars themselves turned upon it rather than allow it to escape its prison.’

  Despite Fulgrim’s needlessly overwrought language, Perturabo’s interest was piqued. He knew well enough that many a legend had a hidden truth at its heart.

  ‘Where is this weapon?’ he asked.

  ‘You know where it is, brother,’ grinned Fulgrim, looking to the volcanic sky. ‘You have always known.’

  Perturabo followed Fulgrim’s gaze, staring up at the swirling vortex of warp energy that seethed and boiled in the heavens.

  The star maelstrom.

  ‘Tell me this legend,’ commanded Perturabo.

  Hidden in the shadows of the flame-bearing nymphs, two kneeling figures watched the meeting of the two primarchs. But where the audience packed into the tiered seating of the grand theatre were held in rapturous awe by the two beings, these individuals felt nothing but hate. The shadows and the dust conspired to mask every aspect of their armour that might mark them out as intruders, but no one was paying any attention to them anyway.

  The larger of the pair wore armour of dark plate, its insignia and Legion markings obscured by carefully cultivated layers of red dust and strung canvas, upon which meaningless scrawls had been daubed. His armour bore numerous scratches and dents that had been left unrepaired by tech-artificers aboard the Sisypheum. He stared at the Phoenician with undisguised loathing, his entire body vibrating with the effort of will it took not to charge headlong at the being who had murdered Ferrus Manus.

  His name was Sabik Wayland and he was of the Iron Hands.

  Beside him, more slender, though still clad in the blackest Legiones Astartes plate – albeit customised to reduce its visual aspect and noise in a variety of spectra and
wavelengths – was Nykona Sharrowkyn: Raven Guard warrior, stealth-master and slayer of traitors.

  Neither was a stranger to operating deep in enemy territory, but this infiltration was perhaps as foolhardy a mission as they had ever undertaken.

  At least since Cavor Sarta and that business with the Kryptos.

  ‘It makes me sick to even look at him,’ said Wayland, repulsed by the sight of Fulgrim.

  Sharrowkyn didn’t look up and kept the lens of his helm pressed to the sight of the matt-black needle-carbine pulled in tight to his shoulder. Converted to take a variety of ammunition loads and operate in different fire settings, the weapon was a compact killing tool, able to slay in silence from afar or up close with a blitzing storm of solid steel needles.

  ‘So don’t look,’ said Sharrowkyn. ‘Listen. Use that parabolic vox-thief Thamatica gave you.’

  ‘Frater Thamatica,’ said Wayland. ‘Why bother? The acoustics here mean we can hear what those traitors are saying perfectly well. I don’t need the thief.’

  He spat the last word as though it were distasteful to him.

  ‘True, but it can record what they’re saying,’ pointed out Sharrowkyn. ‘Branthan and the others are going to want to hear this.’

  Wayland debated insisting that Sharrowkyn employ Branthan’s honorific, knowing the Raven Guard would probably take no notice. Their scattered and ad-hoc organisation of combat cells was hardly a Legion-sanctioned formation, so what did it matter the titles they carried? Yet somehow it did matter. Now Ferrus Manus was gone it mattered more than ever.

  ‘His rank is captain.’

  ‘Fine,’ sighed Sharrowkyn. ‘Captain Branthan is going to want to hear this. I get the impression he’s not a man who likes to make decisions based on second-hand information. Even from someone like you, my friend.’

  Wayland nodded, ashamed at having this aspect of his task here pointed out to him. His thoughts, normally so clear and ordered like the workings of a machine, had been wrenched askew by the sight of the Emperor’s Children’s primarch. To see the killer of Ferrus Manus laughing as though his hands were not red with murder was a gross insult, a stain on the honour of the Iron Hands that was yet to be avenged.

  No warrior of the X Legion had laid eyes on the Phoenician since the betrayal at Isstvan, and Wayland felt the heavy burden of the dead’s vengeful expectations fall to him. His heartbeat thundered in his chest and the metallic fingers of his left hand clenched into a fist as he remembered the Phoenician’s blow that had kept him from the side of Ferrus Manus.

  ‘Focus, Sabik,’ said Sharrowkyn, sensing his building fury. ‘My Legion suffered at their hands too. Do your job and we’ll be able to strike back at them all the harder.’

  Wayland let out a breath, knowing Sharrowkyn was right, but finding it increasingly difficult to keep his Medusan anger in check. Disappointed with such weakness, he took a moment to calm his imbalanced humours, letting the choleric ease and the melancholic ascend to the fore. Where a great many of the Iron Hands were impulsive and quick to anger, Wayland had long ago mastered the ability to distribute his humours to be always in balance.

  Or so he had thought until the moment he had seen Fulgrim take to the stage.

  The memory of what the Phoenician had done cut through him like a las-solder through plastek, and only Sharrowkyn’s restraining hand had kept him from exposing their intrusion.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, letting out a calming breath. ‘My weakness shames me.’

  ‘It’s not weakness to hate them,’ said Sharrowkyn. ‘Use it, brother, hone its edge until the time comes to strike. Then it will be all the more potent when unleashed.’

  Throughout his uncharacteristically verbose response, the Raven Guard hadn’t moved so much as a muscle, the sight of his needle-carbine still pressed to the lens of his helmet.

  ‘Could you actually take a shot from here?’ asked Wayland, breaking out the vox-thief gear and setting the innocuous black box on a telescoping tripod. A number of matt-black cables extruded from his gauntlet and these he hooked into the back of the device, which immediately gave a soft buzz to let him know it was functional.

  ‘Yes, though they’re at the extreme end of my needle-carbine’s effective range, even if they weren’t primarchs.’

  ‘Tempted?’

  ‘Very much so,’ said Sharrowkyn, easing a slender finger through the trigger guard and applying fractional pressure. A range-finder clicked as it adjusted the muzzle grooving. ‘I might just do it to see if that Storm Eagle of yours is worth certifying.’

  ‘Trust me, there’s nothing flying these traitors possess that can catch it.’

  ‘I believe you, but here’s hoping we don’t need to put it to the test.’

  The vox-thief chirruped as Wayland bracketed the three figures in the centre of the amphitheatre, and he heard the click of rotating cogs within as it began recording. As he had told Sharrowkyn, they didn’t need the device to hear what was being said, but Sharrowkyn was right; even in his current state, Captain Branthan would want to hear the traitors’ words for himself before committing them to a course of action.

  Yes, the Iron Hands had been effectively gutted by the betrayal on the black sands, their veterans decimated and their demigod father cut down by a faithless brother, but that only made them all the more dangerous. Like a punch-drunk fighter who refuses to stay down, the Iron Hands had come back to the fight even stronger.

  Wayland turned his thoughts from retribution to the figures below, as the primarch of the Iron Warriors circled around a thin figure swathed in obscuring robes. Who might be deemed important enough to stand in the presence of two primarchs was a mystery, but that he was here at all indicated he was worthy of attention.

  The words of the two traitor primarchs drifted up to the highest reaches of the grand theatre. Sharrowkyn and Wayland listened to their discourse with a mounting sense of horror as the Phoenician explained why he had come to Hydra Cordatus.

  ‘Throne…’ hissed Wayland.

  ‘That doesn’t even come close,’ whispered Sharrowkyn.

  ‘I think maybe you should take that shot after all.’

  Sharrowkyn flipped off the safety and said, ‘I think you’re right.’

  SIX

  Maelsha’eil Atherakhia

  A Shot in the Dark

  The tale belonged to Karuchi Vohra’s race, but it was Fulgrim who took centre stage to tell it. Never at ease with others sharing the limelight, the Phoenician had become narcissistic to the point of egomania, Perturabo saw. He watched Fulgrim as he circled theatrically, the great actor promenading before delivering his greatest soliloquy. Fulgrim took up a heroic pose, more like an actor pretending to be him than himself.

  ‘Brothers and sisters,’ began Fulgrim, with a deep bow. ‘I come before you all to tell a tale of forgotten days, of lost empires and an age of the galaxy before the rise of mankind. We rule now where an ancient race once claimed dominion, and though it declines to its inevitable doom, there are still remnants of its empire’s lost glory in the secret places of the galaxy. Listen well and I will transport you through the mists of time to the last days of this decadent race…’

  Fulgrim’s words were delivered with panache and the precise variation in tone to hook the imagination of the audience. To Perturabo’s ears, they were needlessly ostentatious and took twice the time to tell as was required. Whatever the story to come, Perturabo knew he could tell it with more economy and clarity, but those were two concepts Fulgrim appeared to have left behind in his headlong plunge into whatever obsession was driving him.

  He stood with his arms folded as Fulgrim stalked the stage like a prowling killer, his pallid flesh and ebony eyes sweeping the crowd as though searching for something.

  Fulgrim lifted one arm to the sky. ‘We begin in a time before time, when mankind was yet to crawl on his belly from the primordial waters to the mud of the shore. We were not yet worthy to inherit the mantle of gods, for another race claimed that
honour, and the universe does not permit more than one pantheon to name itself divine.

  ‘The children of Asuryan they were, wrought from the fiery flesh of their godhead and cast into the galaxy like seeds from a ploughman’s hand. They called themselves eldar, and their empire stretched from one side of the Monoceros Ring to the other, from Perseus to the farthest reach of Scutum-Centaurus. Their empire was mighty and proud, for their gods had granted them the means to travel the length and breadth of their realm in the blink of an eye. The warrior kings, Eldanesh and Ulthanesh, led their armies in wars of conquest that saw every foe who dared stand before them brought low. And yet, even with the entirety of the galaxy as their domain, the selfish eldar were not satisfied. Eldanesh wept for the emptiness of his playground, and Isha, the whore goddess from whose bleeding loins the eldar had sprung, shed bitter tears that brought fresh life to the galaxy. Her grief was a wellspring of creation that brought many new and wondrous races into being. All for the amusement of her children, an act of such foolish indulgence that it beggars belief.’

  Perturabo watched Karuchi Vohra as Fulgrim spoke, and though his hood was still raised, it was possible to see the effect the storytelling was having upon him. With each pejorative mention of the eldar, a muscle in Vohra’s face would twitch, a nervous tic that would have been invisible to any perception save that of a primarch.

  Whatever the audience might be feeling towards Fulgrim’s tale, Vohra was not enjoying it.

  Fulgrim circled the amphitheatre, his voice mellifluous, a euphony of sound that was unwillingly drawing Perturabo into the web of characters and plots as Fulgrim gave name to eldar heroes and kings, their great thinkers and, of course, their enemies.

  What drama would be complete without a nefarious evil to oppose?

  ‘As all here know, power begets jealousy and the king of the conquered Hresh-selain race plotted and schemed in the darkest reaches of the galaxy.’

  As Fulgrim gave name to this king, he stooped and rubbed his hands together, like a children’s tale-teller making a pantomime of villainy. The effect was laughable, yet the crowds in the tiers responded with jeers and howls of outrage. Perturabo was dumbfounded at the reaction his brother’s manipulative words were having, yet even he had to confess to a mounting interest in the legendary tale being woven around him.