Angron took this with an impassive shrug. ‘Guesswork.’
‘I can see souls and hear the music of creation,’ Lorgar smiled. ‘In comparison, this is nothing. The Twelfth Legion’s archives are comprehensive enough, you know. Your behaviour tells the rest of the tale, along with the pain I sense radiating from you each and every time we meet. Your entire brain is remapped and rewired, slaved to the implants’ impulses. Tell me, when was the last time you dreamed?’
‘I don’t dream.’ The answer was immediate, almost fiercely fast. ‘I’ve never dreamed.’
Lorgar’s gentle eyes caught the warp’s kaleidoscopic light as he tilted his head. ‘Now you’re lying, brother.’
‘It’s no lie.’ Angron’s thick fingers twitched and curled, closing around the ghosts of weapons. ‘The Nails scarcely let me sleep. How would I dream?’
Lorgar didn’t miss the rising tension in his brother’s body language – the veins in his temples rising from scarred skin, the feral hunch of the shoulders, no different from a hunting cat drawing into a crouch before it struck.
‘You once told me the Nails stole your slumber,’ Lorgar conceded, ‘but you also said they let you dream.’
Angron took a step closer. He started to say ‘I meant…’ but Lorgar’s earthy glare stopped him cold.
‘They give you a serenity and peace you can find nowhere else. Humans, legionaries, primarchs… everything alive must sleep, must rest, must allow its brain a period of respite. The remapping of your mind denies you this. You don’t dream with your eyes closed. You dream with your eyes open, chasing the rush of whatever peace the Nails can give you.’ Lorgar met Angron’s eyes again. ‘Don’t insult us both by denying it. You slaver and murmur when you kill, mumbling about chasing serenity and how close it feels. I’ve heard you. I’ve looked into your heart and soul when you’re lost to the Nails. Your sons, with their crude copies of your implants, have their minds rewritten to feel joy only in adrenaline’s kiss. Those lesser implants cause pain because they scrape the nerves raw, thus your World Eaters kill because it gladdens their reforged hearts, and ceases the pain knifing into their muscles. Your Butcher’s Nails are a more sinister and predatory design, ruining all cognition, stealing any peace. They are killing you, gladiator. And you ask why I’m taking you back to Nuceria? Is it not obvious?’
Angron backed away, his eyes hot where his brother’s were cold. ‘They cannot be removed. And I would fight anyone who tried. If they are killing me, it’s a slow enough death that I feel neither fear nor regret.’
Lorgar’s stare was blazing now. ‘I will save you, Angron. Fight me, hate me, or trust me – it matters not. I will drag you into the immortality you deserve.’
‘They cannot be removed!’ Angron reached for his chainswords, stopping just short of pulling them. He ached to master his emotions, as if here and now, succumbing to rage would somehow prove Lorgar right.
‘I will not remove them,’ Lorgar stepped closer to his brother, his hands outstretched in placation. ‘But the overlords that hammered them into your skull will know more of their function. I will learn all they know of their insidious designs, and then I will burn their loathsome world until its surface is naught but glass. And you will stand with me, taking the vengeance you pretend you no longer desire. If there is a way to save you, somehow, some way, I will do it. This I swear.’
Angron swallowed. Not nervous, for he knew nothing of that particular stripe of unease, but something in Lorgar’s intense, spit-wet whispers had the World Eater grinding his teeth yet again.
‘If what you say is true, why save me?’
Disappointment was clearly etched across Lorgar’s calm features. ‘Why is that a question every one of our bloodline must ask in a disbelieving snarl?’ He sighed. ‘You are my brother. I would spare you any pain I can, and protect you from harm if I’m able.’
Angron said nothing for several heavy, heavy beats of his ursine heart. ‘Blood is not always thicker than water, Lorgar. There are many souls I honour above my own brothers.’ He started pacing, a caged animal, frustrated by the very fact his brother sought to show regard. The unfamiliarity of the moment was venomous. ‘You are weak,’ Angron said at last.
The golden primarch’s eyes unfocused, but he showed no offence beyond his faint distraction.
‘I am weak?’ he asked softly. ‘Did I hear you correctly?’
‘You heard me,’ replied Angron. ‘Let history mark my words well, for I care nothing about who sits proud on the Throne of Terra when the last day dawns. Horus is a fine commander, but that’s the limit of my admiration for that arrogant, preening bastard. I joined his rebellion because I can tolerate him easier than I can endure the abomination that names himself Master of Mankind. You want the truth of my life and death? I am Angron, the Eater of Worlds, and I am already dead. I died over a hundred years ago, in the mountains north of the city that enslaved me. I died after Desh’ea.’
Lorgar clasped his hands together, and the smile that curved his lips held nothing but amused understanding.
‘I am weak,’ Lorgar said again. ‘Me. Is that really true, brother? Am I the only primarch never to conquer his homeworld? Or is that the great and powerful Angron? Am I the first primarch to feel the breath of the Wolves on his throat, or was it Angron and his mighty sons who suffered on the Night of the Wolf, beaten bloody by Russ in the rain?’
Angron roared as he came forwards, though he drew no blade and aimed no blow. ‘I had him! I had Russ at my mercy! You dare say otherwise, when he was the one sent fleeing back to his gunship?’
Lorgar wasn’t cowed. ‘Was that how it happened, brother? Truly?’
‘I… Yes.’ Angron checked his advance, suddenly on edge. ‘We fought. Our Legions fought. The Wolves fell back. We… we chased them.’
‘If you speak the truth,’ Lorgar watched him carefully, ‘then… tell me.’ He almost asked to see, to touch minds and perceive the memory through Angron’s sensory recollections, but hesitated at the last moment. Despite their inanimate lifelessness, the Nails felt any sixth-sense intrusions and tended to bite back. Lorgar had probed and scryed enough to know the truth of that. Better to hear the tale in his brother’s words than to agitate Angron further.
‘You’re wrong.’ Angron spoke in a hoarse snarl, husky not from anger but from the weight of emotion. ‘You’re wrong, it wasn’t in the rain; it was at sunset on a day already darkened by the burning city behind us. My blade broke, but it didn’t matter. I pulled his chainsword from his fists, and broke it in my hands. We fell into the mud, brawling. We’d both known that fight would end up on the ground. I had him, Lorgar. My boot on his throat, at the very end. I stood above him at last, and Russ…’
…and Russ had to crawl away, fanged teeth clenched, breathing spit as much as breath. Strings of it tumbled from his cracked lips with each rasping exhalation. Angron chased as the Wolf King staggered to his feet, but Russ opened his arms wide, offering no fight.
‘Do you see?’ he said. No, he barked it. He barked it not like a simple beast, but with human passion backed by canine ferocity. Conviction burned in his eyes – the same instinctive viciousness of a dog defending its family. ‘Look, damn you. Look around you. Do you see what you’ve done to your sons?’
At the battle’s core, sense pierced Angron’s aching sight long enough to leave him speechless. The axe in his hand lowered, and he looked out at the ranks of Wolves facing him with their bolters raised. They came in ragged packs, abandoning the warfare to form a ring around the primarchs. Wolf after Wolf – close enough for Angron to make out the individual totems and talismans rattling against their storm-grey armour – moving to stand in ragged ranks with their brothers.
One of them, a tribal leader of some kind, stood out by the elaborate blue pack markings over his faceplate.
‘It’s over, Lord Angron,’ he said.
‘Russ.’
Angron turned to his brother, and pointed with one bloody hand over the encircling wolf packs, to where the Legions still fought across the rest of the battlefield. ‘Your Legion is bleeding.’
Russ didn’t deny it, for it was true. Beyond the encircled primarchs, the World Eaters were tearing through their cousins’ grey regiments, fighting without sign of formation, just as they fought without any regard for their primarch. Even in those early days, they were used to Angron fighting alone, and their fresh implants stole any hope of cohesive battle planning. Their stunted brains wouldn’t let them bring order to the chaos.
The few World Eaters in possession of their senses – Lhorke’s towering ironform was one, Angron noted through narrowed eyes – were throwing themselves at the Wolves entrenched around the duelling primarchs, but they lacked the numbers to break through Russ’s defensive packs.
‘My men are dying,’ Russ admitted. ‘Yet here we stand at the battle’s heart, and only one Legion is about to lose its primarch. Do you see why I came? Do you see how you’ve broken your sons?’ He threw an arm to take in a wide pass of the battlefield. ‘The Wolves are soldiers taking an objective. They fight to win, while your World Eaters fight only to kill.’
‘Victory comes,’ Angron smiled, showing a crescent of bloody teeth, ‘to the last man standing.’
Russ spared a glance to the wider battle, wincing at the devastation being inflicted upon both Legions.
‘That is true in the gladiator pits, Angron. But our father desires soldiers and generals. Not gladiators. Death is a necessity – it comes for our foes, and it comes to our own soldiers when we cannot spare them. You spend your Legion’s lives like a lord spends coin. It cannot continue.’
Angron had followed Russ’s glance, but where the Wolf King gave the battle a mere glimmer of attention, Angron was paying full and amused attention.
‘War is only won when every enemy is dead. A pacified enemy is still an enemy.’
‘More gladiator wisdom, Angron. Look at my men surrounding you. Have you honestly learned nothing from this?’
‘Your men are losing, Leman.’ He grinned at his brother. ‘Let’s take this to the last breath, eh? Let the bloodshed play out with the dance of cutting blades. We’ll see which Legion still stands.’
‘Neither will stand. But you die the moment my men open fire.’
‘Death holds no sacred mystery to me, Russ. It holds no terror.’ He laughed then, through the Nails’ pain, laughing hard enough that his eyes watered. ‘I may even welcome it! Are you empowered by our “beloved” father, dog? Can you really give me death, or has your posturing already gone too far? Will you run back to Terra and report that you lost control of your mongrel-blooded curs in the same way you slander me?’
Angron’s pain-slitted eyes locked to his brother’s, and he laughed even harder. ‘This was never meant to come to battle! I see it in your eyes – you took a step too far, little executioner, now you fear how this will all end.’ He stepped closer, his amusement turning sick and savage. ‘Executions are the murder of helpless prey, Russ. What you’ve committed to here, “brother”, is a fair fight.’
He nodded over the battlefield again. ‘And I say once more – your men are losing. You know why? Because yours have something to live for. They care. Mine fight for pleasure, knowing any life outside of war is denied to them. Their own lives are as meaningless to themselves as they are to me, and that is the gift given by the Butcher’s Nails. Warriors, not soldiers. Warriors with no fear of death, and no caution to guard against it. They don’t protect, they kill. They cast aside all thoughts of their own lives in the hunger to end others’. Remember that, Russ. Remember it well.’
‘This isn’t over,’ Russ promised.
‘Whatever soothes your bruised pride, dog.’
Leman Russ, Primarch of the Vlka Fenryka, took in one long, deep breath, and cast his howl to the sky.
‘He howled?’ asked Lorgar. His eyes were wide, pearly with soft wonder.
‘The call to retreat,’ Angron replied. ‘A fighting retreat – it took longer than you can imagine for the World Eaters to realise the battle was over. I had whole companies still trying to fight the Wolves as Russ’s Legion ran for their gunships.’ He chuckled. ‘They took a lot of trophies for their tallies. Many wear them still.’
For several moments, Lorgar had to watch his brother’s flawed face to make sure this wasn’t some elaborate jest.
‘You didn’t answer Russ’s question,’ he said. ‘Did you truly learn nothing from that fight?’
Angron blinked, the dull edge of surprise coming into his eyes. ‘What revelation should I have come to? I learned he wasn’t allowed to kill me. I learned he postured in the hope of bringing me back to Terra, collared and submissive to his whims.’
‘No.’ Lorgar was almost breathless in disbelief. ‘No, no, no. Angron, you stubborn fool. None of that matters.’
‘There were more dead Wolves on that field than dead World Eaters. That matters.’
That, thought Lorgar, was also arguable, but he let it pass. ‘Russ had you cold. You said you had him at your mercy, but he crawled free.’
‘He crawled.’ Angron chuckled again, making a meal of the word.
‘And when he rose, he had you surrounded. He could have killed you.’
‘He tried and failed.’
‘His men, Angron. His Legion could have killed you. Whether the Emperor ordered it or not, Russ spared your life. He didn’t retreat in shame, you arrogant…’ Lorgar sighed. ‘He was probably lamenting your thick skull all the way back to Terra, hoping you’d heed a rather consummate lesson in brotherhood and loyalty. Look what happened. Yes, you beat him in a duel. Yes, your men took down more of his than his of yours. And yet, who won the battle?’
‘The World Eaters,’ Angron said without hesitation.
Lorgar just stared at him for several seconds. ‘I appreciate that every living being must, by the nature of perception, understand and process life in a different way. But even for you, brother, this is achingly obtuse.’
‘You’re saying the Wolves won.’ Angron looked more amused than confused.
‘How can you not see it?’ Lorgar steepled his fingers, trying to rein in his own temper. ‘They won a victory worthy of engraving on their armour for all time. While you were glorying in your strength, Russ’s sons were loyal enough to come to him, to surround you both, to threaten your life while you stood at the vanguard of your own Legion. That may be the most comprehensive moment of outmanoeuvring in the history of the Legiones Astartes. It’s almost poetic in its elegance and emotional resonance. He proves his sons’ loyalty, while yours leave you to die. He proves the damage the Nails are doing to your Legion. He proves the tactical strength of taking an objective rather than fighting purely to kill. He spares your life in the hope you’ll see all of this, in a lesson it cost him heavily to teach you, and your reaction is to grin and claim yourself the victor.’
Angron didn’t chuckle that time. Lorgar could see it in his brother’s tensed muscles – some cognitive switch had clicked somewhere in his consciousness, and Angron’s rage was rising again.
‘Only one of us ran away that night. He’s weak.’
‘Gods’ blood.’ Lorgar was still managing, barely, to speak calmly. ‘The primarchs are the bridge between the Emperor and the species he leads. We are all weak, for we are all equal. All of us. We are humanity magnified: its virtues and its flaws.’
‘I am not weak. I have never been weak.’
‘You are not only weak if you fail to understand Russ’s lesson, you are also a fool.’
Lorgar could see in Angron’s eyes just how much it strained the World Eater to resist closing his hands around his brother’s throat. He was drawing breath to comment on Angron’s self-control when the ship shook beneath them, and they fell from the warp once more. Metal groaned beneath their b
oots as the ship itself writhed in torment to be plunged back into the cold un-tides of realspace. The Lex’s noble machine-spirit was coming to love its journeys through the Sea of Souls.
Angron breathed out in a slow, bearish huff. His bloodshot eyes lost their unhealthy glint, and the shaking eased in his hands.
‘Forget the Night of the Wolf. I came because of Nuceria.’
‘And I have answered you,’ Lorgar countered, still watching the way his brother’s wrath faded as the ship dropped from the warp.
The scarred primarch returned the golden one’s gaze. For the first time, Angron realised that the only injuries Lorgar had failed – or perhaps refused – to heal were the talon-gashes across his cheek, inflicted by Corax on the Killing Fields.
He was already weary of falling into Lorgar’s gentle conversational gambits, and just this once, he wouldn’t rise to his brother’s baiting words.
‘I respect you,’ he admitted. ‘But I will never like you.’ With rare concern and consideration, Angron met his brother’s eyes. ‘You do owe me, though. I saved your life. So I’ll let you save mine.’
Lorgar bowed, priest-like, as he smiled. ‘Make ready, then,’ he said. ‘We’ll reach Nuceria in a month. You are going home, Angron.’
Angron gave the low, throaty ‘Hnngh’ growl again. A slow, iron-fanged smile dawned over his devastated features. ‘I wonder if they still remember me.’
Time passed in the warp like nowhere else. Even on warded vessels, unreality’s caress would drip through to twist the hours in the muscles and minds of the mortals aboard. Tasks that took minutes might leave someone exhausted as if they’d done hours of work; sleep came uneasily to all, and dark dreams plagued many. When a crew member’s cycle of rest came, it wasn’t uncommon for them to leave their quarters at the beginning of their next shift irritable and scarcely rested at all.
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