The two primarchs fell into a seamless, roaring duel exactly where Lorgar and Guilliman had abandoned theirs. This high on the overlooking hill, the water was a dim and distant concern. Lorgar heard its serpent-hissing flow, but spared it no mind. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the song.
Lorgar could barely breathe as the song realigned in his mind. Here, he thought. Now. Angron. Guilliman. Roboute wouldn’t destroy the song. He was part of the crescendo.
Two primarchs faced one, and Guilliman was cunning enough to back away and take whatever ground he could.
‘You two.’ He looked at them with eyes heavy with judgement. ‘My brothers, my brothers, what a sorry sight you’ve become. Traitors. Heretics. No better than the treasonous cultures we’ve quashed for the last two hundred years. Did you learn nothing? Either of you?’
‘Always the teacher,’ said Lorgar, and there was admiration in his smile. ‘It grieves me this was necessary, Roboute.’
Guilliman ignored him, aiming a gauntlet at Angron. ‘I’ve heard Lorgar’s puling heresies already. What brought you so low, brother? Did the machine in your skull finally refashion your loyalty into madness?’
‘Hnnngh. They let me dream. They give me peace. What would you know of struggle, Perfect Son? Hnh? When have you fought against the mutilation of your mind? When have you had to do anything more than tally compliances and polish your armour?’
‘Childish,’ Guilliman sighed, gesturing to the burning, dying city. ‘Does it really come down to this? So pitiably childish.’
‘Childish? The people of your world named you Great One. The people of mine called me Slave.’ Angron stepped closer, chainswords revving harder. ‘Which one of us landed on a paradise of civilisation to be raised by a foster father, Roboute? Which one was given armies to lead after training in the halls of the Macraggian high-riders? Which one of us inherited a strong, cultured kingdom?’
Angron sprayed bloody spit as he frothed the words. ‘And which one of us had to rise up against a kingdom with nothing but a horde of starving slaves? Which one of us was a child enslaved on a world of monsters, with his brain cut up by carving knives?’
The two primarchs met again. Guilliman’s powered gauntlets should have easily deflected Angron’s chainswords, but the World Eater’s strength drove his brother back step by step. Chain-teeth sprayed from the weapons as eagerly as the saliva from Angron’s lipless slit of a mouth.
‘Listen to your blue-clad wretches yelling of courage and honour, courage and honour, courage and honour. Do you even know the meaning of those words? Courage is fighting the kingdom that enslaves you, no matter that their armies overshadow yours by ten thousand to one. You know nothing of courage. Honour is resisting a tyrant when all others suckle and grow fat on the hypocrisy he feeds them. You know nothing of honour.’
Guilliman parried, forced back further by the storm of Angron’s blows.
‘You’re still a slave, Angron. Enslaved by your past, blind to the future. Too hateful to learn. Too spiteful to prosper.’
The Ultramarine finally landed a glancing blow, his fist pounding across Angron’s breastplate. The chain of Desh’elika skulls shattered, bone shards scattering across the dirt.
Guilliman stepped back again, his boot crushing a skull’s remnants into powder.
Angron saw it, and threw himself at his brother, his howl of wrath defying mortal origins, impossibly ripe in its anguish. Though he couldn’t know it, the sound of his cry blended perfectly with the great song.
Lorgar saw it, too. The moment Guilliman’s boot broke the skull, he felt the warp boil behind the veil. The Bearer of the Word started chanting in a language never before spoken by any living being, his words in faultless harmony with Angron’s cry of torment.
TWENTY-TWO
He Dies on this World
Claws of the Ember Wolves
Blood Rain
The hours hadn’t been kind to Argel Tal. He tasted blood, and for once it was his own. Lacerations striped his armour, gouged into the flesh beneath. One of his horns was broken halfway down, cleaved off by a power axe. Scorch marks dappled his armour from flamer wash, and the bone ridges pushing through his armour were bleeding, by means he didn’t understand and was too weak to investigate with any real intent. He kept his wings folded close to his back, doing his best to ignore the rents and blade-cuts painting them in fresh scars.
He’d kept pace with Khârn, side by side with his sword-brother to the last. He alone among the white-armoured squads didn’t laugh and howl in triumph with each life they took and each street they conquered, for he was the only one lacking crude implants rewiring his brain. Several of the World Eaters had attacked him in the disorientation of fighting while Nails-Lost. Each time he’d beaten them back, forcing them to recognise him, taking another wound or three in the process.
Now they ran with Audax, converging on the vast form of the Corinthian as it took its first two steps to get clear of the coffin-ship. He crouched atop a Rhino tank with one damaged tread, straining its engine to push through the floodwaters. He’d wrenched his claws into the armour plating to hold on; World Eaters filled the hull and hung from the outside, gunning their chainaxes in readiness. Khârn was with him, released from the Nails and looking no better than his brother. A sick desperation flavoured the whole fight – warriors on both sides were throwing everything they had into the conflict, as though it were the only war that ever mattered.
The World Eater and Word Bearer crouched together, both looking up at the Imperator rising above.
‘I’ve lost contact with the Conqueror,’ Khârn admitted.
Argel Tal tried to make the link himself. Bolter fire answered; bolters and shouts of anger and pain. Lotara had a fight on her hands.
‘They were boarded,’ said the Word Bearer.
Khârn nodded. ‘I’m not worried. Delvarus stayed this time.’
There was an ugly pause between them, then Khârn turned. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Fighting,’ Argel Tal replied.
‘No. You’re fighting with us over your own men. Erebus’s prophecy is meaningless. I won’t die here, brother. Go lead your Word Bearers.’
Argel Tal shook his head. ‘Do you have any idea how close you’ve come to death this morning? How many times I’ve turned aside a spear or broken a blade?’
‘Many, I’m sure,’ said Khârn. ‘But no more than usual.’
‘You’re wrong.’ The daemonic deathmask, haunting in its perfect beauty, melted into a smile. Even that was damaged, showing cracks like tears down one cheek, splitting the fine lips. ‘And you’re a fool.’ He gripped Khârn’s forearm, forcing the World Eater to pay attention. ‘You are one of the last remaining warriors of the Twelfth Legion that can be relied upon.’
Kargos was hanging onto the tank’s side rails, and looked up at both officers as he heard Argel Tal’s words.
‘Not very complimentary,’ he ventured.
Khârn chuckled, but Argel Tal ignored the Apothecary completely.
‘The others are degenerating faster,’ the Word Bearer insisted, ‘or suffering much worse. The Legion needs you, Khârn. The rebellion needs you.’
‘I’m flattered,’ he said, though in truth he felt chilled by what sounded grievously close to a threat.
‘Enough jests,’ Argel Tal growled. ‘Times are changing, brother. Great changes are coming to the Imperium and the Legions fighting to rule it. Warriors like you and I, at the right hands of the primarchs, will be the Lords of the New Empire. It doesn’t matter if we have no ambition, or if we’ve no desire to serve in such roles. Circumstance will decide for us. The rebel Legions are growing stronger with enlightenment, but not all will survive the trials of ascension.’
Khârn wasn’t sure what this meant. It bordered on typical Word Bearers zealotry, but that was something Argel Tal was rarely guilty of spread
ing.
‘Are you sermonising?’ he asked.
Argel Tal’s deathmask gave him an irritated look. ‘I’m warning you.’ The Rhino jerked as it crashed through a jury-rigged barricade, but the Word Bearer paid no heed. ‘We need the World Eaters in order to win this war. It’s why Lorgar is sweating blood to save Angron’s life.’
‘And why you’re fighting to save mine.’
‘Don’t make light of this.’
Insight struck with his brother’s annoyed tone. ‘You’re doing this just to prove Erebus wrong,’ Khârn stated.
‘Not just to do that,’ Argel Tal replied, and nodded to the Corinthian now towering above them. ‘Be ready. This will not be easy.’
‘Wrong.’ Khârn was grinning now. ‘Watch and learn how hounds bring down a bear.’
The Corinthian couldn’t be allowed to fire. Nothing else mattered. It had taken one monumental step to come free of its bindings, and a second to reach the very edge of the city. Below, racing through the streets of the burning city, thirty Warhounds came on in a rush of crude mechanical precision. World Eaters and Word Bearers units raced with them, as did skitarii troop transports and skimmers in the Legio Audax’s dark red and black.
Ultramarines met the oncoming horde. Oberon skitarii, recently spilled from landers, joined their Macraggian allies. Enemy Warhounds lurched at Corinthian’s heels, raising weapons of their own.
But Lotara’s efforts left the forces making planetfall a fraction of what Guilliman’s armada had hoped to land. Without knowing the fate of their flagship above – beyond sporadic vox-transmissions of screaming and bolter fire – the World Eaters crashed through the thin lines of defence at the Imperator’s clawed feet. The defence towers that served as the Titan’s legs spat turret fire down in a ceaseless barrage. Audax Titans went down, crushing their infantry escorts as they toppled; setting fire to them as their plasma cores went critical in crowded streets. Every Audax Warhound poured fire upwards, their vulcan bolters glowing red-hot, then white-hot, still spinning and still spitting. Spent shells rained onto the streets below with foundry crashes. Warriors on the roads beneath the Titans fought shin-deep in steaming, empty shell cases.
Such was the force of the firepower turned against Corinthian that its void shields caught fire. Flames washed over the tormented energy screens, each bolt shell’s igniting impact flare blending with the others to bathe the entire kinetic barrier in orange fire. The force bubble shielding Corinthian – which wouldn’t have been out of place on a small space frigate – burst, the boom heavy and resonant enough to shatter every remaining window in a five-kilometre radius and adding a rain of glass to the tempest of shell-fall.
In the midst of this, as Khârn and Argel Tal fought back to back with blade and claw, Syrgalah sounded her war-horn. Alone, it was a pale blare against the roar of Corinthian’s deafening voice.
But a second Titan took up the cry. And a third. Soon, all eighteen remaining Warhounds were howling up at their prey. Each of them was as tall as the Titan’s knee, but together they roared loud enough to eclipse its cry of freedom.
The Imperator took another step into the city – a great stride of protesting metal and straining servos, bringing down a low-rise habitation block and flattening a World Eaters Bloodhammer tank beneath its tread. Under way now, Corinthian brought its hellstorm cannon to bear, panning across the cityscape in a slow arc. Every warrior’s teeth itched in the sky-shaking whine of accruing power.
Syrgalah fired first, and Audax followed. Ursus claws loosed skywards, harpoons punching home in Corinthian’s weapon-arms, drilling and magna-locking in place. The Warhounds back-pedalled, withdrawing in straining union, their reinforced chains lashing taut at once.
The Corinthian is shackled by the Warhounds of Legio Audax
‘They’ll bring it down,’ Argel Tal called to the World Eaters around him. His deathmask was awash with skitarii blood. ‘They’ll bring it down on top of us.’
Khârn incinerated an Ultramarine with a kicking burst from his plasma pistol.
‘Wrong again,’ he called back.
Yet more harpoons fired, ramming home with leaden clangs, their chains whipping tight alongside those cables first to land. With the sound of almost divine protest, Corinthian’s massive arms – each the size of a hab-spire – began to lower. The great god-machine’s war-horn sounded again, sounding more furious than triumphant this time. Argel Tal doubted such inflection of emotion was possible, yet the impression stuck all the same. He found himself laughing through the pain, the cursing, and the grind of armour against armour.
The immense guns came lower, lower, forced down to aim at the ground – at the flooded streets beneath the Titan’s own feet. If it fired to destroy the closest Warhounds, it would annihilate its own infantry as well as its own legs. And still it struggled. Despite the incremental strength of so many smaller Titans leashing its arms in place, the Corinthian kept trying to turn and bring its fortress guns to bear. All recognised it for what it was: a move of desperate futility.
She was shackled. They’d bound an Emperor-class Titan.
The voice that came across the vox was wickedly assured, and every warrior heard the smile in the woman’s words.
‘This is Moderati Keeda Bly of the Syrgalah to all infantry forces. Everybody into the water, begin boarding-siege at once. Repeat: lay siege to the Corinthian. Try to remember that we want her alive.’
Lhorke fought alongside Vorias’s cabal of Librarians, killing the Ultramarines that battled like lions in the doomed hope of helping their primarch. His combi-bolters were almost dry; caution left him killing with his energised claws. That suited him fine, he’d fought the same way in life, and his ironform was built to wade through enemy units rather than hold back and fire from afar.
He’d tried several times to raise Lotara, or even that runt Kejic, but the Conqueror had taken to transmitting gunfire instead of language. Lhorke wished the captain well, and focused on what he could do something about.
He admired Lord Guilliman’s plan. Although it suffered from the unexpected presence of the Word Bearers king-ship, and Lotara’s tactical refusal to give ground unless she had no other choice, this was the Ultramarines’ best chance to kill both rebel primarchs before they fled Ultramar’s borders once and for all. Lhorke couldn’t begin to guess what intelligence Lord Guilliman was using in his operations, but given the Ultramarines commander’s reputation for tactical acuity across the length and breadth of the Imperium, he knew this was no thoughtless raid. At best, it was a strike that had gone at least partly awry due to the World Eaters’ fierce resistance. Much likelier, it was the vanguard assault of a much larger fleet action about to break open across the Nucerian System.
Lhorke suspected the Lord of the Five Hundred Worlds had gathered what vessels he could spare after Kor Phaeron’s ambush, drawn additional numbers from the first relief fleet bound for Calth after the massacre, and chased Lorgar directly through the XIII Legion’s own astropathic choirs. He was certain of it because it was exactly what he would have done in Guilliman’s place.
Perhaps other psykers could hear the Word Bearers’ mythical ‘song’. Perhaps they could sense the disruption of Lorgar’s sixth sense. Lhorke knew nothing of it, and cared even less. But Guilliman was here, and forcing them to fight. Courage and honour.
Vorias, Esca and the few Librarians still living among the XII Legion made valuable battle-brothers. They’d come together as a coterie-squad, sharing power and silent words between their linked minds, forming among themselves the very brotherhood they were denied by the rest of the Legion. He considered them War Hounds rather than World Eaters – that piece of positive prejudice offered on account of them lacking the Butcher’s Nails.
When the fighting allowed it, Lhorke would turn his attention to the primarchs, seeing their furious three-way battle playing out atop a mound of the dead. Even there, G
uilliman had been holding his own against both of them, until Lorgar ceased his attack and started his achingly resonant chant. Angron and Roboute still fought, with the Lord of the Ultramarines giving ground each time Angron landed a blow. For all Lhorke’s disgust, he had to grant a shade of respect to his gene-sire. Guilliman had no hope against Angron. The former Legion Master wasn’t sure anyone would have had.
Despite his emotion-dulled existence in a walking coffin of cold amniotic fluid, the temptation to join that fight burned fierce in whatever withered husk remained of Lhorke’s heart. Several times, he found himself on the edge of doing it. How easy it would be to tear himself from this battle, with all the memories it dredged up of the Night of the Wolf, and pit his ironform against the genetic divinity of the warring primarchs.
What stopped him wasn’t the pull of good tactical sense, or fear of being destroyed. No, what stopped him was that of the two duelling primarchs, he wasn’t sure which one he’d really aid once he took that fateful first step closer.
Angron plunged his chainsword up under Lord Guilliman’s breastplate – a shallow stab, but a telling one. The Ultramarine crushed the impaling sword in one fist and staggered back, truly bleeding now.
Lorgar’s alien chanting continued unabated. Despite the tepid dawn, the sky was slowly growing darker.
Something’s wrong,+ said Vorias’s voice in the Dreadnought’s mind. +Lorgar is dealing in power beyond mortal tolerance. Legion Master, if we call, will you stand with us?+
Master? Do you feel that?+
I’d feel that even were I back on Terra,+ Vorias answered over their telepathic bond. Psychic fire was streaming from Esca’s axes, the energy of his soul manifest as flame. Each chop that crunched home into cobalt-blue armour set the ceramite aflame, incinerating its way through any open wounds to boil the blood in his enemies’ veins.
Betrayer Page 36