FEVERISH ACTIVITY FILLED the embarkation deck as fitters, deck hands and Mechanicum adepts made last minute pre-flight checks to the growling Stormbirds. Engines flared and strobing arc lights bathed the enormous, echoing deck in a pale, washed out industrial glow. Hatches were slammed shut, arming pins were removed from warheads, and fuel lines were disconnected from rumbling engines. Six of the monstrous flyers sat hunched at the end of their launch rails, cranes delivering the last of their ordnance payloads, while gunnery servitors calibrated the cannons slung beneath the cockpit.
The captains and warriors selected to accompany the Warmaster’s speartip followed ground crews around the Stormbirds, checking and rechecking their machines. Their lives would soon depend on these aircraft and no one wanted to wind up dead thanks to something as trivial as mechanical failure. Along with the Mournival, Luc Sedirae, Nero Vipus and Verulam Moy – together with specialised squads from their companies – would travel to Davin’s moon to fight once more in the name of the Imperium.
Loken was ready. His mind was full of new and disturbing thoughts, but he pushed them to one side in preparation for the coming fight. Doubt and uncertainty clouded the mind and an Astartes could afford neither.
‘Throne, I’m ready for this,’ said Torgaddon, clearly relishing the prospect of battle.
Loken nodded. Something still felt terribly wrong to him, but he too longed for the purity of real combat, the chance to test his warrior skills against a living opponent. Though if their intelligence was correct, all they would be facing was perhaps ten thousand rebellious Army soldiers, no match for even a quarter this many Astartes.
The Warmaster, however, had demanded the utter destruction of Temba’s forces, and five companies of Astartes, a detachment of Varvarus’s Byzant Janizars and a battle group of Titans from the Legio Mortis were to unleash his fiery wrath. Princeps Esau Turnet had pledged the Dies Irae itself.
‘I’ve not seen a gathering of might like this since before Ullanor,’ said Torgaddon. ‘Those rebels on the moon are already as good as dead.’
Rebels…
Whoever thought to hear such a word?
Enemies yes, but rebels… never.
The thought soured his anticipation of battle as they made their way to where Aximand and Abaddon checked the arms inventory of their Stormbird, arguing over which munitions would be best suited to the mission.
‘I’m telling you, the subsonic shells will be better,’ said Aximand.
‘And what if they have armour like those interex bastards?’ demanded Abaddon.
‘Then we use mass reactive. Tell him, Loken!’
Abaddon turned at Loken and Torgaddon’s approach and nodded curtly.
‘Aximand’s right,’ Loken said. ‘Supersonic shells will pass through a man before they have time to flatten and create a killing exit wound. You might fire three of these through a target and still not put him down.’
‘Just because the last few fights have been against armoured warriors, Ezekyle wants them,’ said Aximand, ‘but I keep telling him that this battle will be fought against men no more armoured than our own Army soldiers.’
‘And let’s face it,’ sniggered Torgaddon. ‘Ezekyle needs all the help he can get putting an enemy down.’
‘I’ll bloody well put you down, Tarik,’ said Abaddon, his grim exterior finally cracking into a smile. The first captain’s hair was pulled back in a long scalp lock in preparation for donning his helmet, and Loken could see that he too was fiercely anticipating the coming bloodshed.
‘Doesn’t this bother any of you?’ asked Loken, unable to contain himself any longer.
‘What?’ asked Aximand.
‘This,’ said Loken, waving an arm around the deck at the preparations for war that were being made all around them. ‘Don’t you realise what we’re about to do?’
‘Of course we do, Garvi,’ bellowed Abaddon. ‘We’re going to kill some damned fool that insulted the Warmaster!’
‘No,’ said Loken. ‘It’s more than that, don’t you see? These people we’re going to kill, they’re not some xeno empire or a lost strand of humanity that doesn’t want to be brought to compliance. They’re ours; it’s our people we’ll be killing.’
‘They’re traitors,’ said Abaddon, needlessly emphasising the last word. ‘That’s all there is to it. Don’t you see? They have turned their back on the Warmaster and the Emperor, and for that reason, their lives are forfeit.’
‘Come on, Garvi,’ said Torgaddon. ‘You’re worrying about nothing.’
‘Am I? What do we do if it happens again?’
The other members of the Mournival looked at one another in puzzlement.
‘If what happens again?’ asked Aximand finally.
‘What if another world rebels in our wake, then another and another after that? This is Army, but what happens if Astartes rebel? Would we still take the fight to them?’
The three of them laughed at that, but Torgaddon answered. ‘You have a fine sense of humour, my brother. You know that could never happen. It’s unthinkable.’
‘And unseemly,’ said Aximand, his face solemn. ‘What you suggest might be considered treason.’
‘What?’
‘I could report you to the Warmaster for this sedition.’
‘Aximand, you know I would never…’
Torgaddon was the first to crack. ‘Oh, Garvi, you’re too easy!’ he said, and they all laughed. ‘Even Aximand can get you now. Throne, you’re so straight up and down.’
Loken forced a smile and said, ‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ said Abaddon. ‘Be ready to kill.’
The first captain held his hand out into the middle of the group and said, ‘Kill for the living.’
‘Kill for the dead,’ said Aximand, placing his hand on top of Abaddon’s.
‘To hell with the living and the dead,’ said Torgaddon, following suit. ‘Kill for the Warmaster.’
Loken felt a great love for his brothers and nodded, placing his hand into the circle, the confraternity of the Mournival filling him with pride and reassurance.
‘I will kill for the Warmaster,’ he promised.
THE SCALE OF it took her breath away. Her own vessel boasted three embarkation decks, but they were poor things compared to this, capable of handling only skiffs, cutters and shuttles.
To see so much martial power on display was humbling.
Hundreds of Astartes surrounded them, standing before their allocated Stormbirds – monstrous, fat-bodied flyers with racks of missiles slung under each wing and wide, rotary cannons seated in forward pintle mounts. Engines screamed as last minute adjustments were carried out, and each group of Astartes warriors, massive and powerful, began final weapons checks.
‘I never dreamed it could be like this,’ said Petronella, watching as the gargantuan blast door at the far end of the launch rails deafeningly rumbled open in preparation for the launch. Through the shimmering integrity field, she could see the leprous glow of Davin’s moon against a froth of stars, as blackened jet blast deflectors rose up from the floor on hissing pneumatic pistons.
‘This?’ said Horus. ‘This is nothing. At Ullanor, six hundred vessels anchored above the planet of the greenskin. My entire Legion went to war that day, girl. We covered the land with our soldiers: over two million Army soldiers, a hundred Titans of the Mechanicum and all the slaves we freed from the greenskin labour camps.’
‘And all led by the Emperor,’ said Petronella.
‘Yes,’ said Horus. ‘All led by the Emperor…’
‘Did any other Legions fight on Ullanor?’
‘Guilliman and the Kahn, their Legions helped clear the outer systems with diversionary attacks, but my warriors won the day, the best of the best slogging through blood and dirt. It was I who led the Justaerin speartip to final victory.’
‘It must have been incredible.’
‘It was,’ agreed Horus. ‘Only Abaddon and I walked away from
the fight against the greenskin warlord. He was a tough bastard, but I illuminated him and then threw his body from the highest tower.’
‘This was before the Emperor granted you the title of Warmaster?’ asked Petronella, her mnemo-quill frantically trying to keep up with Horus’s rapid delivery.
‘Yes.’
‘And you led this… what did you call it? Speartip?’
‘Yes, a speartip. A precision strike to tear out the enemy’s throat and leave him leaderless and blind.’
‘And you’ll lead it again here?’
‘I will.’
‘Is that not a little unusual?’
‘What?’
‘Someone of such high rank taking to the field of battle?’
‘I have had this same argum… discussion with the Mournival,’ said Horus, ignoring her look of confusion at the term. ‘I am the Warmaster and I did not attain such a title by keeping myself away from battle. For men to follow me and obey my orders without question as the Astartes do, they must see that I am right there with them, sharing the danger. How can any warrior trust me to send him into battle if he feels that all I do is sign orders, without appreciating the dangers he must face?’
‘Surely there comes a time when considerations of rank must necessarily remove you from the battlefield? If you were to fall—’
‘I will not.’
‘But if you did…’
‘I will not,’ repeated Horus, and she could feel the force of his conviction in every syllable. His eyes, always so bright and full of power met hers and she felt the light of her belief in him swell until it illuminated her entire body.
‘I believe you,’ she said.
‘Tell me, would you like to meet the Mournival?’
‘The what?’
Horus smiled. ‘I’ll show you.’
‘ANOTHER DAMNED REMEMBRANCER,’ sneered Abaddon, shaking his head as he saw Horus and a woman in a green and red dress enter the embarkation deck. ‘It’s bad enough you’ve got a gaggle of them hanging round you, Loken, but the Warmaster? It’s disgraceful.’
‘Why don’t you tell him that yourself?’ asked Loken.
‘I will, don’t worry,’ said Abaddon.
Aximand and Torgaddon said nothing, knowing when to leave the first captain to his choler and when to back off. Loken, however, was still relatively new to regular contact with Abaddon, and his anger with him over his defence of Erebus was still raw.
‘You don’t feel the remembrancer program has any merit at all?’
‘Pah, it’s a waste of our time to babysit them. Didn’t Leman Russ say something about giving them all a gun? That sounds a damn sight more sensible to me than having them write stupid poems or paint pictures.’
‘It’s not about poems and pictures, Ezekyle, it’s about capturing the spirit of the age. It’s about history that we are writing.’
‘We’re not here to write history,’ answered Abaddon. ‘We’re here to make it.’
‘Exactly. And they will tell it.’
‘Well what use is that to us?’
‘Perhaps it’s not for us,’ said Loken. ‘Did you ever think of that?’
‘Then who’s it for?’ demanded Abaddon.
‘It’s for the generations who come after us,’ said Loken. ‘For the Imperium yet to be. You can’t imagine the wealth of information the remembrancers are gathering: libraries worth of achievements chronicled, galleries worth of artistry and countless cities raised for the glory of the Imperium. Thousands of years from now, people will look back at these times and they will know us and understand the nobility of what we set out to do. Ours will be an age of enlightenment that men will weep to know they were not a part of it. All that we have achieved will be celebrated and people will remember the Sons of Horus as the founders of a new age of illumination and progress. Think of that, Ezekyle, the next time you dismiss the remembrancers so quickly.’
He locked eyes with Abaddon, daring him to contradict him.
The first captain met his gaze then laughed. ‘Maybe I should get one too. Wouldn’t want anyone to forget my name in the future, eh?’
Torgaddon clapped both of them on the shoulders and said, ‘No, who’d want to know about you, Ezekyle? It’s me they’ll remember, the hero of Spiderland who saved the Emperor’s Children from certain death at the hands of the megarachnids. That’s a tale worth telling twice, eh, Garvi?’
Loken smiled, glad of Tarik’s intervention. ‘It’s a grand tale right enough, Tarik.’
‘I wish it was only twice we had to hear it,’ put in Aximand. ‘I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard you tell that tale. It’s getting to be as bad as that joke you tell about the bear.’
‘Don’t,’ warned Loken, seeing Torgaddon about to launch into a rendition of the joke.
‘There was this bear, the biggest bear you can imagine,’ started Torgaddon. ‘And a hunter…’
The others didn’t give him a chance to continue, bundling him with shouts and whoops of laughter.
‘This is the Mournival,’ said a powerful voice and their play fighting ceased immediately.
Loken released Torgaddon from a headlock and straightened before the sound of the Warmaster’s voice. The remainder of the Mournival did likewise, guiltily standing to attention before the commander. The dark complexioned woman with the black hair and fanciful dress stood at his side, and though she was tall for a mortal, she still only just reached the lower edges of his chest plate. She stared at them in confusion, no doubt wondering what she had just seen.
‘Are your companies ready for battle?’ demanded Horus. ‘Yes, sir,’ they chorused.
Horus turned to the woman and said, ‘This is Petronella Vivar of House Carpinus. She is to be my documentarist and I, unwisely it seems now, decided it was time for her to meet the Mournival.’
The woman took a step towards them and gave an elaborate and uncomfortable looking curtsey, Horus waiting a little behind her. Loken caught the amused glint concealed behind his brusqueness and said, ‘Well are you going to introduce us, sir? She can’t very well chronicle you without us can she?’
‘No, Garviel,’ smiled Horus. ‘I wouldn’t want the chronicles of Horus to exclude you, would I? Very well, this insolent young pup is Garviel Loken, recently elevated to the lofty position of the Mournival. Next to him is Tarik Torgaddon, a man who tries to turn everything into a joke, but mostly fails. Aximand is next. “Little Horus” we call him, since he is lucky enough to share some of my most handsome features. And finally, we come to Ezekyle Abaddon, Captain of my First Company.’
‘The same Abaddon from the tower at Ullanor?’ asked Petronella, and Abaddon beamed at her recognition.
‘Yes, the very same,’ answered Horus, ‘though you wouldn’t think it to look at him now.’
‘And this is the Mournival?’
‘They are, and for all their damned horseplay, they are invaluable to me. They are a voice of reason in my ear when all around me is confusion. They are as dear to me as my brother primarchs and I value their counsel above all others. In them are the humours of choler, phlegm, melancholia and sanguinity mixed in exactly the right amount I need to keep me on the side of the angels.’
‘So they are advisors?’
‘Such a term is too bland for the place they have in my heart. Learn this, Petronella Vivar, and your time with me will not have been in vain: without the Mournival, the office of Warmaster would be a poor thing indeed.’
Horus stepped forward and pulled something from his belt, something with a long strip of parchment drooping from it.
‘My sons,’ said Horus, dropping to one knee and holding the waxen token towards the Mournival. ‘Would you hear my oath of moment?’
Stunned by the magnanimity of such an act, none of the Mournival dared move. The other Astartes on the embarkation deck saw what was happening and a hush spread throughout the chamber. Even the background noise of the deck seemed to diminish at the incredible sight of the Warmaster
kneeling before his chosen sons.
Eventually, Loken reached out a trembling gauntlet and took the seal from the Warmaster’s hand. He glanced over at Torgaddon and Aximand either side of him, quite dumbfounded by the Warmaster’s humility.
Aximand nodded and said, ‘We will hear your oath, Warmaster.’
‘And we will witness it,’ added Abaddon, unsheathing his sword and holding it out before the Warmaster.
Loken raised the oath paper and read the words the commander had written.
‘Do you, Horus, accept your role in this? Will you take your vengeance to those who defy you and turn from the glory of all you have helped create? Do you swear that you shall leave none alive who stand against the future of humanity and do you pledge to do honour to the XVI Legion?’
Horus looked up into Loken’s eyes and removed his gauntlet, clenching his bare fist around the blade Abaddon held out.
‘On this matter and by this weapon, I swear,’ said Horus, dragging his hand along the sword blade and opening the flesh of his palm. Loken nodded and handed the wax seal to the Warmaster as he rose to his feet.
Blood welled briefly from the cut and Horus dipped the oath paper in the clotting red fluid before affixing the oath paper to his breastplate and grinning broadly at them all.
‘Thank you, my sons,’ he said, coming forward to embrace them all one by one.
Loken felt his admiration for the Warmaster fill his heart, all the hurt at their exclusion from his deliberations on the way here forgotten as he held each of them close.
How could they ever have doubted him?
‘Now, we have a war to wage, my sons,’ shouted Horus. ‘What say you?’
‘Lupercal!’ yelled Loken, punching the air.
The others joined in and the chant spread until the embarkation deck reverberated with the deafening roars of the Sons of Horus.
‘Lupercal! Lupercal! Lupercal! Lupercal!’
THE STORMBIRDS LAUNCHED in sequence, the Warmaster’s bird streaking from its launch rails like a predator unleashed. At intervals of seven seconds, each Stormbird fired until all six were launched. The pilots kept them close to the Vengeful Spirit, waiting for the remaining assault craft to launch from the other embarkation decks. So far, there had been no sign of the Glory of Terra, Eugan Temba’s flagship, or any of the other vessels left behind, but no one was taking any chances that there might be wolf pack squadrons of cruisers or fighters lurking nearby. Presently, another twelve Stormbirds of the Sons of Horus took up position with the Warmaster’s squadron as well as two belonging to the Word Bearers. The formation complete, the Astartes craft banked sharply, altering course to take them to the surface of Davin’s moon. The mighty, cliff-like flanks of the Warmaster’s flagship receded and, like swarms of bright insects, hundreds of Army drop ships detached from their bulk transporters – each one carrying a hundred armed men.
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