‘No idea,’ said the pilot, ‘but there’s hundreds of them coming down from the fleet. Looks like a lot of people want to see Davin.’
Loken didn’t reply, but the sight of so many landing craft en route to Davin was yet another piece of the puzzle that he didn’t understand. The vox networks were jammed with insane chatter, weeping voices and groups claiming that the end was coming, while yet others gave thanks to the divine Emperor that his chosen champion would soon rise from his deathbed.
None of it made any sense. He’d tried to make contact with the Mournival, but no one was answering, and a terrible foreboding filled him when he couldn’t even reach Maloghurst on the Vengeful Spirit.
Their flight soon carried them beyond the Imperial position, and Loken saw a ribbon of light stretching north from the landing zone. A host of pinpricks of light pierced the darkness, and Loken ordered the pilot to fly lower and reduce speed.
A long column of vehicles: tanks, supply trucks, transporter flatbeds and even some civilian traffic, drove along the dusty hardpan, each one swamped with people, and all heading to the mountains as fast as their engines could carry them. The Thunderhawk powered on through the fading light of day, soon losing sight of the column of vehicles that was heading in the same direction.
‘How long until we reach the Warmaster’s position?’ he asked.
‘At current speed, maybe ten minutes or so,’ answered the pilot.
Loken tried to collect his thoughts, but they had long since derailed in the midst of all this madness. Ever since leaving the interex, his mind had been a whirlpool, sucking in every random thought and spitting it out with barbs of suspicion. Could it be that he was still suffering the after-effects of what had happened to Jubal? Might the power unlocked beneath the Whisperheads be tainting him so that he jumped at shadows where none existed?
He might have been able to believe that, but for the presence of the anathame and his certainty that First Chaplain Erebus had lied to him on the voyage to Davin.
Karkasy had said that Erebus wanted Horus to come to Davin’s moon, and his undoubted complicity in the theft of the anathame could lead to only one conclusion. Erebus had wanted Horus to be killed here.
That didn’t make any sense either. Why go to such convoluted lengths just to kill the Warmaster, surely there had to be more to it than that…
Facts were slowly accumulating, but none of them fit, and still he had no idea why any of this was happening, only that it was, and that it was by the artifice of human design. Whatever was going on, he would uncover the conspiracy and make those involved pay with their lives.
‘We’re coming up on the Warmaster’s Stormbird,’ called the pilot.
Loken shook himself from his venomous reverie. He hadn’t been aware of time passing, but immediately turned his attention to what lay beyond the armoured glass of the cockpit.
Tall mountain peaks surrounded them, jagged cliffs of red stone, veined with gleaming strata of gold and quartz. They followed the course of an ancient causeway along the valley, its flagstones split and cracked with the passing of the centuries. Statues of long-dead kings lined the processional way, and toppled columns littered this forgotten highway like fallen guardians. Shadows plumbed the depths of the valley along which they flew and in a gap ahead, he could see a reflected glow in the brazen sky.
The pilot dropped their speed and the gunship flew through the gap into a colossal crater gouged from the landscape like an enormous, flat-bottomed basin. The sheer sides of the crater soared above them, its diameter thousands of metres across.
A huge stone building stood at its centre, carved from the same rock as the mountains and bathed in the light of a thousand flaming torches. The Thunderhawk circled the structure and Loken saw that it was a giant octagonal building, each corner shaped like the bastion of a fortress. Eight towers surrounded a wide dome at its centre and flames burned from their tops.
Loken could see the Warmaster’s Stormbird below them, a multitude of torchbearers surrounding it, hundreds, maybe even thousands of people. A clear path stretched from the Stormbird towards the cyclopean archway that led into the building, and Loken saw the unmistakable form of the Warmaster being borne by the Sons of Horus towards it.
‘Take us down. Now!’ shouted Loken. He rose, made his way back to the crew compartment and snatched his bolter from the rack.
‘What’s up?’ asked Vipus. ‘Trouble?’
‘Could be,’ said Loken, turning to address all the warriors aboard the gunship. ‘Once we disembark, take your lead from me.’
His warriors had efficiently prepped for a combat disembarkation, and Loken felt the motion of the Thunderhawk change as it slowed and came in to land. The internal light changed from red to green and the craft slammed hard into the ground. The assault ramp dropped and Loken led the way out, marching confidently towards the building.
Night had fallen, but the air was hot, and the sour fragrances of bitter blossoms filled the air with a beguiling, aromatic scent. He led his men onwards at a quick march. Many of the torchbearers turned quizzically towards them, and Loken now saw that these were the indigenous inhabitants of Davin.
The Davinites were more wiry than most mortal men, tall and hirsute with thin limbs, and elaborate topknots worn in a style similar to Abaddon’s. They wore long capes of shimmering, patterned scales, banded armour – of the same lacquered scales – and most were armed with cross-belts of daggers and primitive looking black powder pistols. They parted before the advance of the Astartes, heads bowed in supplication, and it forcibly struck Loken just how close to deviancy these creatures appeared to be.
He hadn’t paid much attention to the Davinites the first time he’d landed. He was just a squad captain more concerned with obeying orders and completing the tasks assigned to him than paying attention to the locals. Even this time, his attention had been elsewhere, and the almost bestial appearance of the Davinites had more or less slipped past his notice.
Surrounded by hundreds of the planet’s inhabitants, their divergence from the human genome was unmistakable, and Loken wondered how they had avoided extermination six decades ago, especially since it had been the Word Bearers who had made first contact with Davin – a Legion not noted for its tolerance of anything beyond the norm.
Loken was reminded of Abaddon’s furious argument with the Warmaster over the question of the interex, and of how the first captain had demanded that they make war upon them for their tolerance of xenos breeds. If anything, Davin was far more of a textbook case for war, but somehow that hadn’t happened.
The Davinites were clearly of human gene-stock, but this offshoot of humanity had diverged into a species almost all of its own. The wide spacing of their features, the dark eyes without pupils and the excessive, almost simian volume of thick hair on their faces and arms put Loken more in the mind of the stable-bred mutants some regiments of the Imperial Army employed. They were crude creatures with the intelligence to swing a sword or fire a clumsy rifle, but not much else.
Loken did not approve of the practice, and though the inhabitants of Davin were clearly possessed of a greater level of intelligence than such beasts, their appearance did not reassure him as to what was going on.
He put the Davinites from his mind as he approached a massive set of steps carved into the rock and lined with statues of coiling serpents and flaming braziers. Three narrow channels filled with rushing water divided the stairs, one to either side and one down the centre.
The Warmaster and his bearers were out of sight on the next level, and Loken led his warriors up the processional stairs, taking them three at a time as he heard a monstrous grinding of stone up ahead. The image of vast, monolithic doors appeared unbidden in his mind and he said, ‘We have to hurry.’
Loken neared the top of the steps, the flickering coal braziers casting a ruddy glow over the statues that glinted from the serpents’ scales and quartz-chip eyes. The last rays of the dying sun caught the twisting snakes car
ved around the pillars, making them seem alive, as if slowly descending to the steps. The effect was unsettling, and Loken opened his suit link again, saying, ‘Abaddon, Aximand? Can either of you hear me? Respond.’
His earpiece hissed with static, but his hails received no answers and he picked up the pace.
He reached the top of the steps at last, and emerged onto a moonlit esplanade of yet more serpentine statues atop pillars that lined a narrowing roadway leading towards a giant, arched gateway in the face of the massive edifice. Wide gates of carved and beaten bronze with a glistening, spiraled surface rambled as they swung closed, and Loken felt his skin crawl at the sight of that dread portal, its yawning darkness rich with the promise of ancient, primal power.
He could see a group of Astartes warriors standing before it, watching as the monstrous gate shut. Loken could see no sign of the Warmaster.
‘Pick up the pace, battle march,’ he ordered, and began the loping, ground-eating stride that the Astartes adopted when there was no vehicle support. Marching at this speed was sustainable over huge distances and still allowed a warrior to fight at the end of it. Loken prayed that he wouldn’t be required to fight at the end of this march.
As he drew closer to the gates he saw that, far from being etched with meaningless spirals, each was carved with all manner of images and scenes. Looping serpents twisted from one leaf to another, others circled and swallowed their tails, and yet more were depicted intertwined as though mating.
Only when the gate slammed shut with a thunderous boom of metal did he see the full image. Unlike the commander, Loken was no student of art; nevertheless, he was awed by the full impact of the images worked onto the sealed gateway. Central to its imagery was a great tree with spreading branches, hanging with fruit of all description. Its three roots stretched out beyond the base of the gates and into a wide circular pool that fed the streams running the length of the esplanade, before cascading down the grand stairs.
Twin snakes coiled around the tree, their heads entwined in the branches above, and Loken was struck by its similarity to the symbol borne upon the shoulder guards of the Legion apothecaries.
Seven warriors stood at the edge of the pool of water, before the massive gate. They were armoured in the green of the Sons of Horus, and Loken knew them all: Abaddon, Aximand, Targost, Sedirae, Ekaddon, Kibre and Maloghurst.
None wore their helmets and as they turned, he could see that each one had the same air of helpless desperation. He had walked into hell with these warriors time and time again, and seeing his brothers with such expressions on their faces, drained him of his anger, leaving him hollow and heartbroken.
He slowed his march as he came face to face with Aximand.
‘What have you done?’ he asked. ‘Oh my brothers, what have you done?’
‘What needed to be done,’ said Abaddon, when Aximand didn’t answer.
Loken ignored the first captain and said, ‘Little Horus? Tell me what you’ve done.’
‘It is as Ezekyle said. We did what had to be done,’ said Aximand. ‘The Warmaster was dying and Vaddon couldn’t save him. So we brought him to the Delphos.’
‘The Delphos?’ asked Loken.
‘It is the name of this place,’ said Aximand. ‘The Temple of the Serpent Lodge.’
‘Temple?’ asked Torgaddon. ‘Horus, you brought the Warmaster to a fane? Are you mad? The commander would never have agreed to this.’
‘Maybe not,’ replied Serghar Targost, stepping forward to stand beside Abaddon, ‘but by the end he couldn’t even speak. He spoke to that damn remembrancer woman for hours on end before he lost consciousness. We had to place him in a stasis field to keep him alive long enough to bring him here.’
‘Is Tarik right?’ asked Loken. ‘Is this a fane?’
‘Fane, temple, Delphos, house of healing, call it what you will,’ shrugged Targost. ‘With the Warmaster on the threshold of death, neither religion nor its denial seems very significant any more. It is the only hope we have left and what do we have to lose? If we do nothing, the Warmaster dies. At least this way he has a chance of life.’
‘And at what price will we buy his life?’ demanded Loken. ‘By bringing him to a house of false gods? The Emperor tells us that civilization will only achieve perfection when the last stone of the last church falls upon the last priest, and this is where you bring the Warmaster. This goes against everything we have fought for these last two centuries. Don’t you see that?’
‘If the Emperor was here, he would do the same,’ said Targost, and Loken felt his choler rise to the surface at such hubris.
He stepped threateningly close to Targost. ‘You think you know the Emperor’s will, Serghar? Does being lodge master of a secret society give you the power to know such a thing?’
‘Of course not,’ sneered Targost, ‘but I know he would want his son to live.’
‘By entrusting his life to these… savages?’
‘It is from these savages that our own quiet order comes,’ pointed out Targost.
‘Yet another reason for me to distrust it then,’ snapped Loken, turning from the lodge master and addressing Vipus and Torgaddon. ‘Come on. We’re getting the Warmaster out of there.’
‘You can’t,’ said Maloghurst, limping forward to join Abaddon, and Loken had the distinct impression that his brothers were forming a barrier between him and the gateway.
‘What do you mean?’
‘It is said that once the Delphos Gate is shut, there is no way to open it save from the inside. A man in need of healing is carried inside and left to whatever the eternal spirits of deceased things decree for him. If it is his destiny to live, he may open the gate himself, if not, it opens in nine days and his remains are burned before being cast into the pool.’
‘So you’ve just left the Warmaster inside? For all the good that will do him, you might just as well have left him on the Vengeful Spirit; and “eternal spirits of deceased things” – what does that even mean? This is insane. Can’t you see that?’
‘Standing by and watching him die would have been insane,’ said Maloghurst. ‘You judge us for acting out of love. Can’t you see that?’
‘No, Mal, I can’t,’ replied Loken sadly. ‘How did you even think to bring him here anyway? Was it some secret knowledge your damned lodge is privy to?’
None of his brothers spoke, and as Loken searched their faces for answers, the truth of the matter was suddenly, horribly, clear to him.
‘Erebus told you of this place, didn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ admitted Targost. ‘He knows of these lodges of old and has seen the power of their healing houses. If the Warmaster lives you will be thankful he spoke of it.’
‘Where is he?’ demanded Loken. ‘He will answer to me for this.’
‘He is not here, Garvi,’ said Aximand. ‘This was for the Sons of Horus to do.’
‘Then where is he now, still on the Vengeful Spirit?’
Aximand shrugged. ‘I suppose so. Why is it important to you?’
‘I believe you have all been deceived, my brothers,’ said Loken. ‘Only the Emperor has the power to heal the Warmaster now. All else is falsehood and the domain of unclean corpse-whisperers.’
‘The Emperor is not here,’ said Targost bluntly. ‘We take what aid we can.’
‘What of you, Tarik?’ put in Abaddon. ‘Will you turn from your Mournival brothers, as Garviel does? Stand with us.’
‘Garvi may be a starch-arse, Ezekyle, but he’s right and I can’t stand with you on this one. I’m sorry,’ said Torgaddon as he and Loken turned away from the gate.
‘You forget your Mournival oath!’ cried Abaddon as they marched away. ‘You swore to be true to the Mournival to the end of your lives. You will be oath-breakers!’
The words of the first captain hit Loken with the force of a bolter round and he stopped in his tracks. Oath-breaker… The very idea was hideous.
Aximand came after him, grabbing his arm and pointing towards the
pool of water. The black water rippled with motion and Loken could see the yellow crescent of Davin’s moon wavering in its surface.
‘See?’ said Aximand. ‘The moon shines upon the water, Loken. The crescent mark of the new moon… It was branded upon your helmet when we swore our Mournival oath. It is a good omen, my brother.’
‘Omen?’ spat Loken, shrugging off his touch. ‘Since when have we put our faith in omens, Horus? The Mournival oath was pantomime, but this is ritual. This is sorcery. I told you then that I would not bow to any fane or acknowledge any spirit. I told you that I owned only the empirical clarity of Imperial Truth and I stand by those words.’
‘Please, Garvi,’ begged Aximand. ‘We are doing the right thing.’
Loken shook his head. ‘I believe we will all rue the day you brought the Warmaster here.’
PART THREE
THE HOUSE OF FALSE GODS
THIRTEEN
Who are you?
Ritual
Old friend
HORUS OPENED HIS eyes, smiling as he saw blue sky above him. Pink and orange tinged clouds drifted slowly across his vision, peaceful and relaxing. He watched them for a few moments and then sat up, feeling wet dew beneath his palms as he pushed himself upright. He saw that he was naked, and as he surveyed his surroundings, he lifted his hand to his face, smelling the sweet scent of the grass and the crystal freshness of the air.
A vista of unsurpassed beauty lay before him, towering snow-capped mountains draped in a shawl of pine and fir, magnificent swathes of emerald green forests as far as the eye could see and a wide river of foaming, icy water. Hundreds of shaggy coated herbivores grazed on the plain and wide pinioned birds circled noisily overhead. Horus sat on the low slopes of the foothills at the base of the mountains, the sun warming his face and the grass wondrously soft beneath him.
‘So that’s it then,’ he said calmly to himself. ‘I’m dead.’
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