hunting fruitlessly for food or water, warding off the attacks of the translucent psychneuein whenever they drew close. The rhythms of survival took over, punctuating his peripatetic existence.
He kept the cards safe. Every so often, when the lightning was vivid and he could see them more clearly, he took them out and shuffled the deck. No pattern emerged for him to interpret - he would see the number cards alternate with the pictures of kings and scholars and claw-footed devils. If it had once had the power of divination, that power had gone.
Or perhaps the cards still told true, and he could no longer see what he was being shown.
He couldn't remember when he had last slept. He walked the ruins endlessly, occasionally talking to himself to remain sane. The only other sounds were the crack of thunder, the muffled crash of falling masonry and the half-heard susurration of the ghosts.
For some reason, he was drawn back towards the centre. Despite the danger, his meandering course took him ever closer to the origin. He saw the immense hump of the Pyramid of Photep and spent hours just watching it. The Occullum Square was close by, shimmering with the phantasmic dance of its strange guardians.
'What are you waiting for?' asked the White Scars legionary.
Arvida looked up at him. He knew his name now - Orzun. The warrior's skin was bone-pale, and he had a fatal wound in his chest.
'I don't know,' Arvida replied.
'You took the cards.'
'I did.'
'Leave them.'
'Why do you want me to leave them?' Arvida smiled dryly, aware of the lunacy of talking to a shade. 'Why do you want anything of me?'
'All these things are sent as lessons,' said Orzun. 'Here is the pattern and we are the brush-strokes.'
Arvida ignored him. He wasn't really there. Neither of them were.
'What are you waiting for?' asked Orzun again, repeating himself as if on a vid-loop.
'I don't know,' Arvida replied, just as before.
Then, far away to the north, where the old Warhound corpse lay and where the armour of his fallen brothers was still scattered in the dust, Arvida felt a tremor. His head snapped up. He stood, peering out into the murk.
He saw nothing, not with his eyes, but he did feel the world's warp-skin briefly pierced. Somewhere, out in the ruins, something had changed.
He started to move, already plotting a course towards the disturbance. He would have to go warily. Whatever had the power to break the aegis might well have the power to break him, too.
'Just what do you expect of them, brother?' called out Orzun, already fading into the gloom behind him. 'Salvation?'
Arvida didn’t reply. He kept walking.
They might take you in,' Orzun went on, 'but then they will turn you. They have their own war now, and you are just a weapon in it. Why do you think they will be any different to the ones that came before?'
Orzun's voice was becoming lost in the howl of the wind.
'And what of the flesh-change, brother? When will you tell them of that?'
By then, though, Arvida wasn't listening. He had no idea what had broken into his solitary world, but at least it was something. For the first time in a long while - and he had no means of knowing how long - he was not alone.
When Arvida woke, he knew what he had to do. He looked around his chamber on the Swordstorm for a final time then started to don his armour. As he did so, he saw the extent of the discolouration on his hands. It had spread during the night, welling up under the skin. He could sense the completeness of his psychic recovery, for Yesugei was a skilled tutor, but the Stormseer knew nothing of the
XV Legion's long-dormant curse. When he twisted his helm into position, the air-seal pressed painfully up against the swelling on his neck.
Just before leaving, Arvida opened a metal drawer under his bunk and retrieved the small box. Then he activated the door controls and slipped into the corridor outside.
The Swordstorm was in its nominal nocturnal period and the lumens were set low. Though thousands of the crew still worked, there were slightly fewer moving from deck to deck, which made his task easier.
Arvida went stealthily, treading in the manner he had learned when eluding the ghosts. As he crept along, he opened his mind out ahead of him, tracing future paths like branches of coral.
He saw others moving before they knew it themselves and used that knowledge to stay unseen. He would wait until the way ahead was clear and then hurry down it, already detecting the other souls who would be hard on his heels soon. He watched will-o'-the-wisp outlines of future-bodies moving in a mist of possibility and plotted his course to thread through them all.
Despite this skill, it was not possible to remain entirely undetected and so he was forced to disable some who came across him. He did not kill them - they were all mortals, and so were easy to render unconscious. The trail of bodies, though, limited his time to act. They would be discovered quickly, the alarm would be raised, and more formidable guards would be roused.
Arvida went up the decks, one by one, until he reached a pair of locked doors. He reached for the box, took it out and rested it against the join where the doors met the deck. Then he was off again, head low, picking up speed.
Down, this time - first via the lifter shafts and then using the manual stairways. His future-sight was not perfect. He ran across a group of four menials and nearly let one escape before he was able to immobilise them all.
He went more quickly after that, knowing the danger but unable to risk wasting any more time. He reached his destination, one of the dozens of void-hangar decks, and activated the security doors. The passcodes came to him easily as soon as he touched the keypads, the last thoughts of the previous operator swam into his mind.
He nearly made it out onto the deck without being seen, but the White Scars vigilance was not as casual as it had once been. With the airlock doors looming, alarms started to sound. He heard the thud of boots on the levels above and immediately sensed the numbers coming after him.
He pushed on through the airlock, sealing the doors behind him and depressurising the chamber. Air rushed past, drawn through grilled vents and diverted back into the rest of the ship. The sounds around him sucked away into a numb silence. Ahead of him lay an antechamber filled with racks of maintenance equipment and bulky fuel stations. Beyond the next doorway stood the void-deck, where his target rested.
Arvida hurried to the final rank of door controls, security-locked just like the others. He stumbled on the first attempt to enter the code, his thoughts distracted by the growing clamour in his mind. He sensed pursuers enter the corridors he had just run down, envisioned them discovering the bodies of the human serfs, and imagined them drawing their weapons.
He entered the code again, correctly this time, and the doors slid open. He locked the portal behind him, hoping his immediate hunters were from a different detail and that it would hold them up for at least a few seconds.
The system-runner Tajik stood on the wide deck before him, just as he had foreseen that it would. It was primed for launch, having docked only eight hours previously. Like all such vessels, it was kept in a state of constant readiness in a hangar open to the void. It was small, with a normal complement of only twenty, but it had the crucial feature he required - speed.
Just as he ran towards the ramp, he caught sight of a second set of blast-doors opening on the far right-hand side of the hangar. He swung around to see a lone White Scars legionary charging across the apron, his bolter already firing.
Arvida threw himself to the deck, sensing the bolt-rounds whistling across his back. He scrambled forward, gaining his feet again and bursting up to meet the warrior coming at him.
Arvida fired, hitting his enemy in the arm and sending his bolter tumbling from his grasp. Without missing a beat, the legionary switched to his tulwar blade, and brought it scything for Arvida's torso. Arvida evaded the strike, but only barely, twisting awkwardly as the metal edge scraped across his armour.
At such ra
nge his own bolter was too clumsy, so he reached for his sword. The two of them traded blows in rapid succession, sending showers of armour-flakes bouncing around them on the iron deck.
Arvida sensed peripheral movement - another door had been opened - and felt the presence of at least a dozen souls milling behind the thick bulkheads.
There was no time. He increased the intensity of his swordplay, desperately seeking any way to disable the warrior before him. For a few moments, his opponent gave him nothing, and they remained locked in an evenly matched struggle.
Then, just as he had done with Yesugei, Arvida saw the path of the future unroll. The White Scar's intentions revealed themselves in shimmer-outlines, betraying his movements and opening up his defence like a book.
Arvida reacted instantly, swiping his enemy's blade from his hand. It hit the vacuum-silent deck five metres away and skittered harmlessly across the metal plates. Arvida's next blow punched through the legionary's armour, piercing his secondary heart and ending the contest. Polyps of blood spurted out, globulous in the vacuum.
It took two more strikes to stop the warrior from getting up and
coming after him, by which time more hangar doors were opening. Weapons-fire lanced across the open space. Arvida saw projectile-paths searing ahead like tracer fire, and had to sprint hard to avoid being hit.
He made the Tajik's assault ramp and clattered up inside. As soon as he reached the controls, he locked the ship's hatches, powered up the drives, and keyed in the launch sequence. He could hear the zing and whine of more impacts on the pressurised ship's hull, and detected heavy outer armour-plates descending beyond the hangar's void-exit.
Soon they would have the Swordstorm's shields up. Either that or the armoured screens would close, or his pursuers would disable the Tajik on the deck, or a kill-team would force their way in.
Arvida knew, though, that there would be time for none of those things. As he settled into the cockpit and clutched the control columns, he saw the void glinting back at him through the open exit.
He was out. He was free, evading them just as he had evaded every danger amidst the ruins of Tizca, and there was nothing they could do to catch him now.
Yesugei looked down at the battered tin box. He held it up to the light, running his eyes over the scratches and bum marks. The box itself was not old. Perhaps, in the past, its contents would have been housed in other more elaborate receptacles, like a saint's bone in a reliquary.
He opened the box, spilling the cards onto the desk before him. One by one, he leafed through them. They were of Terran origin, he could tell, but beyond that he had little idea what their significance was. There were cards decorated with cups, swords, rods and coins. Some showed images of humans, others mythical beasts. As he cycled through them, he felt a faint heat from their surfaces - not physical heat, but the after-image of some psychic inferno.
That did not surprise him. Anything taken from Prospero would have had such a signature.
Yesugei studied the cards for a long time. He spread them out before him, rearranging them into whatever patterns felt appropriate, before pushing them back into a heap. Then he replaced them carefully in the box.
'Why you do it?' he asked.
Arvida, who sat opposite him across the desk, stared down at his own clasped hands. 'I thought I could get out.'
The ship you took would not have cleared fleet. What were you thinking?'
There would have been a way.'
Yesugei shook his head, mystified. 'But you change your mind. You never take off. Why?'
'I was running. Orzun did not run.'
Yesugei’s brow creased in a frown, distorting the tattoos across his dark skin. 'I do not understand.'
'I am not Ahriman. You see that? I don't have his power, and if I did then I would not use it in the same way. I am grateful - believe me, very grateful. But you're trying to recreate something that no longer exists.'
Yesugei looked surprised. 'I never-'
'Yes, you did. I could feel it. You wanted to bind me to your Legion. In the end, you would have had me clad in white, with a curved sword and a skull-topped staff, and soon I would be speaking Khorchin just as you do.' Arvida smiled dryly. 'Just because my brothers brought ruin down on themselves does not mean I can forget them now.'
'No Legion left on Prospero, Revuel. No cults now.'
'Does it matter? Would it matter to you, if Chogoris had been burned and you were the last one left? I don't think so.'
Yesugei tilted his head, acknowledging the point. 'I was there, you know, when Magnus and the Khan and others make their pact. I thought it can come back, even if your primarch is gone. Perhaps not.' He looked up, fixing Arvida with his golden eyes. 'So you will go? You will leave us?'
Arvida nodded. 'I have to. Just not yet, and not like that. It would have been... discourteous.'
'See? You are already half White Scar.'
Arvida laughed. 'Not really.'
'Where you will go?'
'I see portents, here and there. Beyond these moments, nothing.' You are legionary,' said Yesugei. 'Not designed to fight alone.'
'I was alone for a long time.'
Yes, and nearly killed you.'
'I will know the moment when it comes. You, of all of us, should understand that.'
Yesugei picked up the box again and looked at it thoughtfully. You left this for me.'
'It was Ahriman's. As far as I know, it's the last thing of his intact in the galaxy. I thought you should have it.'
Yesugei toyed with it. 'Do not know. It has strange shadow.' Then he smiled, guiltily, as if chiding himself. 'But it is fine gift. I will keep it. Who knows? Perhaps one day it will find way back to owner.'
'Only if it can cross the veil. Ahriman is dead, just like the rest.' 'We must assume so. But there are days when I cannot believe it.' Yesugei stowed the box away. 'I hope you can stop running, brother. What is left to run from? All is in the open.'
Arvida looked wary then, as if that were not entirely true.
'No more running,' was all he said.
The tribunals drew to their conclusion. Other defendants did not survive the judgement, either because they had committed crimes against the Legion's codes of war, or because of the blood oath. The majority were inducted into the sagyar mazan, the bringers of vengeance, and were deployed in fast attack squadrons and given coordinates for immediate launch.
The rest of the fleet was instructed to form up for void-passage,
and movement between vessels was curtailed. The time that Yesugei and Arvida had to spend in training ran out, and the Stormseer was increasingly called upon to perform other duties.
On the last day before the Swordstorm powered into the warp, Arvida made his way down the ship's vast forge-levels. The level of industry there was intense, as the metal-beaters churned out weapons in a ceaseless stream. No one was under any illusion that they would not be needed.
He found the master of the forge, a hulking Terran named Sonogei. He withdrew the wrapped pauldron that he had carried down with him and pulled back the fabric covering it.
'It is not one of ours,' said Sonogei, staring at the crimson plate.
'It is Fifteenth Legion,' explained Arvida, showing him the raven's head device set within the star. The one I used to wear. Can it be mended?'
Sonogei took the pauldron and hefted it expertly, running his eyes down the lower-edge connectors. His servo-arms whirled, producing a scanning augur-needle, and a glowing green line slipped across the pitted surface.
'It can,' he said. 'If you give me your connecting cannon assembly and breastplate, I can make it slot as smooth as oil. But you are the sorcerer? I have already made a shoulder guard for you. The zadyin arga ordered it.'
'I still have it. It is a fine piece. But, forgive me - this armour kept me alive for a long time. I would wear it again, whole.'
Sonogei looked at him sceptically. Arvida stepped closer.
'I would not ask if it were
not important.' He took the pauldron back, and held its insignia up to the light of the furnaces. 'You see this? The emblem of my order. I took vows, when I joined, just as you did. I know you understand that. I’ve seen the proof of it.' Arvida thought back to Orzun, and the final look of triumph on his dying face. 'I am not a legionary of the White Scars. In truth, I do not know what I am anymore, but I will keep the old icons until I find out.'
Sonogei shook his head unhappily, but eventually took the armour piece back. 'Bring me the rest,' he said. 'I'll see what I can do.'
Arvida bowed. You have my thanks,' he said.
He walked away. As he did so, the itch started up again, more vigorous than before. Arvida resisted the urge to scratch.
I knew Prospero would not claim me, he thought dryly, but this? After all I endured, to be eaten by our oldest curse?
He looked back to where Sonogei lifted the pauldron clear into the air. He briefly saw the star of his old Legion, bathed blood-red in both ink and forge-glow, and proud against a backdrop of flame.
It still stirred his soul. Even now, after all that had happened, he could not forget the oaths that he had made to that sigil.
It will not claim me, not yet. There will be a path, one I shall tread as a legionary of the Thousand Sons.
His confidence grew as he thought on it, just as it had done during the terrible days in ruined Tizca. He would find a way to elude it. There would be a cure, somewhere.
I will endure. I will remain. The last, the undefeated.
Then Revuel Arvida, of the Fourth Fellowship, Corvidae, ascended the stairs leading away from the forges. The Swordstorm's warp drives thundered into life, taking him back to war, to the enemy, and a future that he had not yet learned to see.
They called him the killer of Titans.
Lucretius Corvo did not care for the title. He was captain of the 90th Company of the XIII Legion. That was honour enough for him.
In Martial Square, Corvo stood with the veterans of the Shadow Crusade and the atrocity at Calth. Ten files of thirteen: officers, battle-brothers and neophytes ordered without deference to rank. They were joined by brotherhood of a kind that transcended the boundaries of Chapter, station and company.
Sedition's Gate - Nick Kyme & Chris Wraight Page 7