Angron shook his head as he continued. ‘Words don’t do them justice. We came from the red sands, growing in the filth, eating the shit the high-riders fed us. But we broke free. Thousands, Lorgar. Thousands of us. We were free, and we lived and laughed and we made the bastards pay. The Nails hurt – ah, how they hurt, even then. But we made the high-riders and their paperskin Kin-Guard pay.’
Lorgar listened in silence as Angron lowered his head. ‘I should have died here. I did die here. The primarch of the World Eaters is nothing but a shade. An echo. This is where I belong. The greatest battle of my life, and it was stolen from me.’
Now Lorgar spoke, not without a slight smile. ‘There will be a greater battle, brother. Terra. And I promise you, no one will deny it to you.’
‘Terra. Terra!’ Angron laughed, the sound rotten with bitterness. ‘I piss on Terra. I care nothing for Terra, or Horus, or… or Him. Him. The Emperor.’
‘Then why do I hear such hatred in your voice?’ Lorgar asked quietly.
Angron pulled the chainblades from their scabbards on his back, clenching the handle-triggers and setting them roaring.
‘Hnngh. Hnh. He took me! He dragged me into the sky! The Emperor. The gods-damned Emperor.’
‘You’ll have your vengeance, Angron. We will stand upon Terra’s soil again before long, you have my word.’
‘My brothers,’ Angron continued, murmuring low, not hearing his brother’s oath. ‘My sisters. Slaves, all. Pit-fighting slaves. Our lives were mud to the high-riders that held chains around our throats. But our masters paid, oh how they paid. This world burned when we broke free. It burned. I promise you that.’
The other primarch nodded in slow understanding. ‘I believe you.’
Angron still wasn’t hearing anything but the ghosts in his mind. ‘The war dragged on. Season after season. City after city. The rivers ran red with high-rider blood! We fought. We fought everywhere, I swear it. The high-riders charged our shield-wall at Falkha. They charged us! Their lordlings demanded it of them, and they rose to the bait. I still hear the thunder of both lines meeting. Do you hear it?’ He turned wild eyes on Lorgar. ‘Do you hear the thunder?’
Lorgar smiled, his rune-painted face ruthlessly kind. ‘I hear it, brother.’
‘But we fled when the seasons turned. We had to run into the mountains, to the ridges, to survive the winter. Too many high-rider armies were coming for us, with their lasers and grenades and machine guns rattling all day and every night. I swore I’d die with my brothers and sisters in the mountains. We were free. It was our death. The death we earned, the death we wanted. We laughed and called them closer! High-rider bastards!’
Angron turned, living the moment a second time, vaulting onto a boulder and throwing his arms wide. He shouted – nay, screamed – his laughing challenge to the sky.
‘Come and die, dogs of Desh’ea! I am Angron of the pits, born in blood, raised in the dark, and I will die free! Come, watch me fight one last time! Is that not what you want? Is that not what you always wanted? Come closer, you dog-blooded cowards!’
Khârn watched his primarch standing against the rising wind, seeing history repeating itself to the tune of maddened memory. Angron raised his chainswords, miming the first cuts and carves of that last fight. The teeth roared with every sweep. The gathered legionaries were transfixed, staring in silence.
‘And then. And then. Hnh. The Emperor. Hnnngh. The Emperor. He stole me, trapped me, banished me to the Conqueror’s dark belly. Teleported me up into orbit, though at the time, I knew nothing of such technology. I was alone, alone in the dark. And my brothers and sisters died here. They died without me. I swore. We all swore. We swore to stand and fight and die. Together. Together.’
Angron rocked back and forth, the blades lowering, his eyes unfocusing. ‘The Emperor. High-rider dog-filth. When Horus called, I gave my word. I gave my word, because I lived when I should have died. That’s no gift. He made me a traitor! He made me betray the only oath that mattered! I lived and my brothers and sisters died here, their bones left for the vermin, the wind, the snow.’
The two brothers could have been alone for all the attention they paid to their nearby warriors. Lorgar walked to Angron again, careful not to touch him, but pitching his voice in what felt to Khârn like an insidious caress.
‘No purer emotion than rage,’ said Lorgar. ‘No more righteous ambition than vengeance.’
The light of recognition dawned in Angron’s eyes. ‘Vengeance, aye. Revenge. Food for the soul, brother.’
‘Why were you different?’ Lorgar asked. ‘Why did our father treat you as he did?’
Angron shrugged away from the insipid kindness in his brother’s tone. ‘You kept that mule Kor Phaeron. Russ kept his kin-friends. The Lion kept Luther. Humans – brothers and foster fathers – saved and raised into Legion ranks. But not me. Not Angron, no. Did the Emperor teleport his gold-wrapped Custodians down to help me and my army? No. Did he free the War Hounds and order them to battle, to fight alongside me? No. Did he save my brothers and sisters the way he spared and honoured the Lion’s closest kin? The way he honoured Kor Phaeron? No, no, and no. No mercy for Angron. Angron the Oathbreaker. Angron the Betrayer.’
The World Eater jumped from the boulder, looking down at the bones but still speaking to Lorgar. ‘Did he stay on my homeworld for weeks, as he did with you on Colchis, Vulkan on Nocturne, and Russ on Fenris? No. No contest of strength and will with the Emperor for Angron the Slave. No weeks of laughter and joy and healing the world’s wounds. Instead, he stole me from the life I’d lived and the death I’d earned. He made me break my oath to those who needed me.’
Lorgar’s eyes were fierce now. ‘But why? Why did he let your army die? Why did he steal you in a teleportation flare, when he could have remained here for a time, as he did on so many other worlds? He had a Legion – your Legion – in orbit, Angron. A single order, and they would have bloodied their blades at your side, saving your rebel army and hailing you as their gene-sire. Instead, he collared them, as he collared you.’
Angron drooled, thick and wet, down his chin. ‘I’ll never know why. He never answered me. But he’ll pay, as the high-riders paid. And when I stand before him on Terra, I will ask again. And then, Lorgar, our father will answer.’
The Word Bearer sighed, in the grip of something sublime and unshared. ‘You deserve an answer.’
‘Desh’ea,’ said Angron. ‘I have to go there. I have to see who rules the city that claimed to own me. The city that murdered my brothers and sisters.’
‘As you wish,’ Lorgar agreed. ‘As you wish.’
It galled her that the Praxury was right. Despite their hurried arrival, they did seem peaceful. Reports listed thousands upon thousands of them making planetfall on the plains outside the city, unquestionably landing an army, but making no assault upon Desh’ea itself. Stuck as she was by the royal throne, she presided over a procession of officers bringing her updates and observer reports, whispering in her ear and swapping data printouts.
The Praxury sat straight in his throne, half the height of his father and twice as ridiculous as that pompous fool had ever been. His periapt of office was an amulet of polished silver shaped into a clenched fist – young Tybaral wore it around his neck, though it hung almost to his stomach. Every now and again, he’d sigh, as if the weight of the world rested upon his shoulders.
‘How many houses have mobilised?’ Oshamay asked one of her subcommanders. He was nervous, she saw it in his eyes, but he dealt with it cleanly, purely, masking it in the efficiency of a busy soldier.
‘Perhaps half are already at the walls, general. Most of the rest are choosing to defend their own estates rather than join the communal defence force.’
She dismissed him, not surprised in the slightest that so many houses were choosing to reinforce their own estates; in fact, she was shocked so many were choosing
to send their soldiers to man the walls. It wasn’t like the noble bloodlines to actually act with any unselfish vision; she knew that well from almost thirty years as an officer in the Praxury’s court.
To the next of her officers that approached, she leaned in close to speak into his ear. ‘If they do attack the city, be ready to free the slaves.’
To his credit, he didn’t ask if she was sure, or argue at the idea’s inherent madness. If the city was attacked, the several thousand slave-caste warriors in the arena’s fighting pits might at least help shore up the defenders’ numbers. And if they revolted and rioted? It hardly mattered, the city was doomed anyway.
‘I’ll see to it,’ the officer promised.
‘Good luck,’ she said. That made him hesitate – no one was used to hearing affection from the general’s thin lips. Oshamay was glad he decided not to acknowledge her momentary slip. Her nerves were as frayed as anyone’s, given what was taking shape out there on the plains.
They didn’t have to wait for long. Heralds ran through the great stone doors at the throne room’s southern entrance, escorted by soldiers running and looking back over their shoulders.
Oshamay swallowed. This didn’t look good.
‘Our one lord!’ the heralds cried, babbling and speaking over each other. The boy-king endured this display with regal, practiced patience. He never got the chance to speak, however.
The first figure to stalk through the black marble archway was so tall he had to lower his head. Oshamay literally felt the hundreds of courtiers’ unified intake of breath; they gasped as one, many backing away to the walls as the towering figure made its entrance. He was taller than any human, clad in armour of cold red and lustrous, clean bronze. Dreadlock-cables ran from the back half of his shaven and tattooed head, down into the active powered suit of armour. Everyone staring up in awe at the warlord knew those implants – Butcher’s Nails, the cyber-crest of a slave.
Two toothed, motorised swords were lashed to his back, though the idea of this creature, this avatar of brutality, requiring weapons to strike his foes down was laughable. He stalked down the red carpet leading to the Reskium Throne, his boots sending tremors through the stone floor. The throne’s polished surface reflected the artificial lighting strips above, and the cringing figures of almost two hundred courtiers. Several Kin-Guard soldiers went for their guns with trembling hands. Others recognised the sheer futility of the gesture. Oshamay was one of the latter.
The figure stopped, turned, regarded his surroundings. The lipless face was the visage of a broken angel, scarred and ruined, denied any echo of what might have once made it handsome.
‘So,’ he said, and his voice was the grinding of bitter stonework. ‘Who sits in ascendancy in this age?’
On the throne, the boy-king started crying. His Kin-Guard, lifesworn to defend him to their final breaths, started retreating away from the throne. The god-warrior saw their slow retreat, and it made him smile.
‘Is it you, boy? You’re Praxury of Desh’ea?’
The boy curled into his throne, crying louder. The god came closer, taking the stairs slowly, four at a time.
‘Boy,’ he said, his gravelly voice now a dusty whisper. ‘What family are you from? What blood beats in your filthy high-rider veins?’
It was Oshamay who answered in place of the crying child. She alone hadn’t cowered back from the Reskium Throne.
‘You stand before Tybaral of House Thal’kr.’ She almost managed to keep her voice level.
The god’s face tightened at the name, tautening into a grimace that failed to be either a scowl or a smile.
‘Thal’kr,’ he said. ‘That family still rules? After all this time…’
‘They still rule.’ Oshamay stood straighter, fear-tears in her eyes. Her heart beat fit to burst.
‘The Thal’kr held my leash,’ the warrior said. ‘They owned me.’
Other invaders were entering now. The first of them was as tall as the dreadlocked god, his skin pale gold where the blade-bearer’s was scarred and tanned. He carried a spiked and ridged maul over one shoulder, and a cloak the colour of bloody sunsets cast back to reveal armour of the same vascular hue. His features were sculpted in statuesque masculinity, somehow protective and serene and confident all at once. Up close, through the tears in her eyes, Oshamay saw the gold on his skin was runic script tattooed onto his flesh. The only flaw was the claw-scars along one cheek, from temple to his jawline, though they added to his presence rather than stole from it. At first sight of him, dozens of courtiers fell to their knees. Others wept – not the shameful tears of fear but the silent weeping of purest awe.
Trailing behind the golden god were armoured knights in clean white and sanguine red. Thirteen of them in total – the warriors in white held axes in loose fists; the knights in red bore parchment strips bound to their battle-plate, and carried curved blades in their hands, while armoured fuel tanks sloshed on their backpacks. Each of them stared from a snarling helm with a silver faceplate. They seemed to be guarding a lone female – a precious, fragile girl of two and a half decades’ life, clad in red silk. She was willowy in shape but utterly fearless, surrounded by her protectors. Dark hair framed dusky features and dark eyes that danced from face to face, weapon to weapon, painting to painting.
‘Lorgar,’ said the dreadlocked god by the throne. He said that one word, with his shoulders shaking. Then he threw his head back, and started laughing as loud as the ghost-wind back in the mountains.
Khârn and Argel Tal hesitated – as did every World Eater and Word Bearer – when Angron’s laughter cut the sterile silence. It was more than mere laughter, it was a slice of life brought to the chamber’s mournful, stunted emptiness. Those who’d been cowering withdrew further. Those who’d been standing their ground found their skin crawling.
‘Lorgar.’ Angron was still laughing, his bloodshot eyes wet with amusement. ‘Behold, brother! Behold the last scion of the family that once owned me. How the mighty have fallen!’
Khârn watched Lorgar ascend the steps to the throne, standing next to Angron, casting the poor, crying child into the shadow of two primarchs. For the first time Khârn could ever recall, the primarch of the XVII Legion looked unsure. Doubt warred with bemusement across his features.
Understanding passed between the two warlords and Angron slapped his brother on the shoulder. The laughter faded from his throat, but never left his eyes.
‘I will handle this,’ he said to Lorgar. And then, ‘You. Woman. Come here.’
Oshamay, who’d never been spoken to like that in her life, put all her effort into swallowing the lump in her throat.
‘You’re not him,’ she stammered. ‘You can’t be him.’
Angron clacked his teeth together, a feral snapping bite aimed at the air. ‘Can’t I?’
‘Angron-Thal’kr died a hundred years ago,’ Oshamay whispered. ‘He fled at the Battle of Desh’elika Ridge.’
‘He… He…’ There was no laughter now. The life in his eyes faded, leaving them pearlescent with numbing pain. Angron brought his whole body around to face her, to look down at her. ‘He fled. You said those words to me. You said Angron-Thal’kr fled.’
General Oshamay Evrel’Korshay tried to speak but it left her clattering teeth as a weak moan while her bladder emptied itself down her thighs.
‘Speak,’ Angron almost purred, hatred souring his breath.
‘He led a rebellion of slaves. He left them to die in the mountains. He…’
‘You.’ Angron wrapped her whole head in a scar-thickened fist. ‘You lie, woman. You will– hnnngh, you will tell the truth now.’
She sobbed instead, and her crying killed her. Angron closed his fist, ending her distinguished career in a crumbling of gory skull fragments that he didn’t bother shaking from his hand. The body toppled; Angron looked at it on the floor, seeming annoyed that it had d
ied, as though he had nothing to do with it.
‘You.’ He pointed a blood-wet hand at the closest officer. The man wore a breastplate over his black toga, marking him out as a captain. Angron recognised that much; so little had changed in the century he’d been gone.
‘Please,’ the man said. ‘Please. Please.’
The primarch’s breathing was carnosaur-low, carnosaur-heavy. ‘You,’ he said again, and now his own great hands were shaking. Khârn recognised all the signs of Nails-pain. ‘You will speak,’ Angron said. ‘Tell me of this battle. The Battle of Desh’elika Ridge.’
‘You’re him,’ the officer whispered. ‘You’re him.’
‘Speak.’ The roar rocked the man onto his heels, driving him back against a pillar.
Khârn risked a glance at Argel Tal. The Word Bearer stood by Cyrene – who’d insisted she was making planetfall with them – with his silver faceplate tilted to regard the primarchs. Behind them both, Vorias and Kargos were equally emotionless behind their Sarum-pattern visages.
‘Captain,’ came Esca’s voice over the vox. The Codicier stood far back, close to the doors with several of the Vakrah Jal. ‘The fear in the chamber is threatening to reach breaking point. The human herd instinct will force them to flee.’
Khârn didn’t need to be psychic to know the Librarian was correct. He could see it in their tremulous movements, and smell the copper on their breath.
‘Kill any who bolt for the doors.’
‘Aye, captain.’
On the platform with the throne, Lorgar was a statue carved in honour of patience. Angron loomed over the whimpering Nucerian officer, closing a fist around the man’s armoured torso and dragging him from his feet.
‘You will speak,’ the primarch breathed, ‘or you will die.’
‘A hundred years ago,’ the man whined. ‘A legend. An old story. Angron-Thal’kr and the rebel army, massacred in the mountains. He… You…’
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