Corax: Soulforge

by Gav Thorpe

  When he spoke, the warped traitors voice was deep, reverberating across the hall, resonant with echoes of power.

  ‘You have met your match, primarch,’ Nathrakin taunted. He let his arms drop, flames springing up from his fists, burning with black fire. ‘Nothing can withstand the power of Immortal Chaos.’

  ‘Let’s test that boast, traitor filth.’

  All apprehension gone, Corax leapt at Nathrakin, claws extended. With a speed that nearly matched the primarch’s, the sorcerer stepped aside, striking out with his arm-blades to score a welt across Corax’s plackart. Without pause, Corax regained his balance and pivoted as Nathrakin slammed into him, driving the two of them down the pile of the unholy altar.

  Corax rammed a knee up into his enemy’s gut, lifting Nathrakin from the ground and releasing his grip. A tenebrous vapour flowed from the warp portal, surrounding the sorcerer with a pulsing aura as he pushed himself back to his feet; flexing his talons, a slender tendril connecting him with the rift.

  Nathrakin laughed.

  ‘You see? Any mortal, even a Space Marine, would have been slain by that blow alone. You have not even winded me, Corax. How does it feel to face your last battle?’

  Corax struck as a blur, raining blows down upon the upstart champion of Chaos, claws raking and slashing in a frenzy against Nathrakin’s upraised arms, shredding armour and showering blood. The primarch’s attack drove him away from the portal step by step, but still the immaterial tether linking the Word Bearer to the source of his power remained.

  ‘Enough!’ Nathrakin’s roar almost deafened Corax. The sorcerer struck out with a straight punch that connected with the primarch’s jaw, hurling him back a dozen metres to crash into a hanging mechanical leg. Black flame crawled across the primarch’s face, trying to eat into his flesh, stinging his eyes.

  ‘Never enough,’ Corax replied grimly as the flames on his face guttered out. ‘You will never defeat me.’

  The two charged at each other, but at the last moment Corax jumped, igniting his pack to execute a twisting somersault over his opponent. Landing behind Nathrakin, Corax rammed both sets of claws into the traitor’s back. Lightning crackling across armour-flesh, blood boiling from the wound as steam.

  Corax’s wings flattened as he bounded straight up, the flare of rockets propelling them both into the broad girders that held up the furnace hall’s roof. Turning and spinning, the primarch slammed Nathrakin against the rafters, smashing his head upon steel, ramming him bodily into the struts. The Chaos champion screamed, from frustration rather than pain, unable to bring his talons to bear against his attacker.

  Turning groundwards, the primarch dived, driving himself and Nathrakin into the floor like a meteor. The Shockwave of their impact set the chains and hanging engine components clanging and banging. Withdrawing his claws, Corax stood over the traitor and stomped on him, crashing his foot again and again into Nathrakin’s back, the bare rockcrete floor beneath him cracking and splintering.

  The champion of Chaos lay still and Corax stepped back, breathing heavily. He listened. The faint beating of twin hearts still pulsed. Shallow rasps of breath still passed Nathrakin’s lips.

  In the moment before Corax could strike again, Nathrakin rolled onto his back, fists thrust out. Ebon fire spewed from his hands, splashing across Corax’s face and chest, driving him back.

  Regaining his feet, Nathrakin laughed once more.

  ‘Is that all you can offer, Corax? To think that you almost bested Lord Aurelian.’

  Corax looked at the Word Bearer. His armour was buckled and rent, blood streaming from dozens of wounds. His face was little more than mashed flesh - lips split, teeth broken, nose flattened. One of his horns had snapped.

  ‘You seem to be a poor judge of who is winning this fight,’ the primarch said. ‘I am only just getting started.’

  The two charged at each other again, claws clashing against talons with a fountain of electricity and warp energy spraying into the air. Corax came face-to-face with his enemy, slowly pushing Nathrakin’s fists closer and closer, the primarch’s claws edging towards the traitor’s throat.

  ‘Let’s see you boast with no head, renegade scum. I will destroy every warp-spawned, Chaos-tainted creature in the galaxy before I die.’

  Nathrakin’s ruby gaze flickered away from Corax’s for a moment, quickly glancing down at the crackling blades only millimetres from his throat.

  ‘You should start your hunt a little closer to home, primarch.’

  The sorcerer looked directly into Corax’s eyes, and the primarch saw himself reflected there: a giant with white skin and eyes like coal.

  Nathrakin laughed. ‘Did you think the primarchs were something pure?’

  In that moment Corax thought of the poor Raptors that had been mutated by his gene-seed tampering and suddenly feared just what it was that he had unleashed in them. Was their bestial appearance something to do with the raw primarch genes he had used?

  Nathrakin sensed his hesitation and sneered.

  ‘How could the Emperor create such demi-gods with science alone? Warriors that can withstand tank shells? Leaders whose every word must be obeyed? Creatures with powers far beyond any Thunder Warrior or legionary? Why do you think the Emperor decided not to simply recreate his children when they were lost? What unqiue gifts of darkness did he pass to you?’

  Corax’s moment of doubt was all Nathrakin needed. With a triumphant bellow, the Word Bearer threw back the primarch, revealing scorch marks across his throat. Droplets of black fire dripped from his bone-blades as he advanced.

  ‘Lorgar saw the truth! Time that you saw it too. Accept the nature of Chaos and join your brothers on the true path of righteousness.’

  Corax had heard enough, and lashed out with astounding speed.

  ‘Silence!’

  Caught up in his taunting, Nathrakin reacted too slowly. A lightning claw swept the Word Bearer’s head from his shoulders and sent it flying into the gloom.

  Panting, Corax lowered into a crouch, shaking his head. The traitor had been lying, trying to save his skin. The Emperor was sworn to destroy Chaos - he had told Corax that himself. Flickers of memory from the Emperor pushed at Corax’s consciousness; images of his creator in his laboratory tending to the nascent zygotes that would become his immortal gene-sons.

  ‘No.’ Corax stood up, his doubts dissipating. The Emperor could not have lied, he would have seen it. ‘I am no creature of Chaos.’

  He noticed then that the aura surrounding Nathrakin’s corpse was thickening, the tendril of warp energy undulating from the warp portal moving more quickly.

  The body twitched.

  Corax felt a chill of anxiety as he heard a quiet chuckle.

  Nathrakin’s mangled breastplate was moving, his abdomen splitting into a maw lined with adamantium teeth, ruby eyes pushing out from his pectorals. A thin, serpentine tongue slid over needle-like fangs as the Chaos champion sat up.

  ‘Chaosh cannot be deshtroyed’ lisped the deformed mouth, lips of ceramite moulding from the armour.’It ish eternal.’

  Corax shook his head in disbelief as Nathrakin pushed himself to his feet. With a shudder, a sting-tipped tail erupted from behind him, swinging up over his shoulder. The stump of his neck grew metal barbs, forming a bestial mouth. The black flames engulfed his hands once more.

  ‘Shubmit or be shlain. It is that shimple.’

  Taking two strides, Corax punched the claws of his right fist into the fallen champion’s new face and lifted him up. Black fire streamed around the two of them as Nathrakin screeched and pounded his talons against the primarch’s head and face, tearing at skin and flesh and metal. Corax ignored the pain and staggered towards the open warp rift.

  ‘Chaos may be immortal,’ he snarled, heaving the Word Bearer towards the portal. ‘Flesh is not.’

  With a roar, Corax threw Nathrakin into the swirling globe of energy.

  It flashed bright as the Word Bearer seemed to stick to its surface.
Daemonic faces appeared from within the shimmering sphere, laughing and leering. Clawed hands grabbed the sorcerer and dragged him deeper into its depths, until he was obscured by the crackling energy.

  Corax struck out, smashing down the nearest stalagmite sustaining the rift. He whirled around the monstrous altar, claws crashing through the upthrusts of metal and bone, the portal pulsing more and more wildly as each was toppled. As the final jutting spike was severed, the rift imploded. Corax felt the shock of it at the core of his being, as though a fist had clenched around his heart.

  The moment passed.

  ‘Lies,’ he muttered, turning away. ‘The Emperor told me that too - lies and deceit are the only weapons Chaos truly wields.’

  Yet the words sounded hollow as he spoke them, for he also knew that the most convincing lies were those wrapped around a core of truth.

  The wounds on his face itched and his shoulder was sore, but there was still fighting to be done. Iapetus was not yet claimed for the Emperor.

  EPILOGUE

  CORAX STOOD UPON the bridge of the Kamiel, alone with Sagitha Alons Neortallin.

  ‘Iapetus is under my control and those who did this to you are dead,’ he told the Navigator. ‘The Mechanicum have a ship that I can use to rejoin my Legion. Know peace.’

  The primarch hesitated, recalling the words of Nathrakin. He wondered what Sagitha beheld when she looked at him. What manner of creature did she see with that warp eye of hers?

  ‘A good man,’ she whispered, somehow in answer to his unspoken question. ‘A good and loyal servant of the Emperor. Nothing more, nothing less.’

  A tear trickled down the Navigator’s scarred cheek as Corax placed the tip of a claw beneath her ravaged chin.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

  ARTWORK

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Gav Thorpe is the New York Times bestselling author of ‘The Lion’, a novella in the collection The Primarchs. He has written many other Black Library books, including the Horns Heresy novel Deliverance Lost and audio drama Ravens Flight as well as fan-favourite Warhammer 40,000 novel Angels of Darkness and the epic Time of Legends trilogy, The Sundering. He is currently working on a new Dark Angels series, The Legacy of Caliban. Gav hails from Nottingham, where he shares his hideout with the evil genius that is Dennis, the mechanical hamster.