by Gav Thorpe
‘Guessing is for gamblers. We can’t afford to take chances.’
Arvan Woundweaver lashes out at the Raven Guard
Weregeld
~ Dramatis Personae ~
The Primarchs
Corvus Corax, The Ravenlord, the Saviour of Deliverance
Leman Russ, The Wolf King, the Lord of Winter and War
Followers of the Ravenlord
Agapito Nev, Commander of the Talons
Branne Nev, Commander of the Raptors
Soukhounou, Commander of the Hawks
Aloni Tev, Commander of the Falcons
Gherith Arendi, Commander of the Black Guard, former Shadow Warden
Chovani, Sergeant, Talons
Corbyk, Talon
Gal, Talon
Vanda, Talon
Henn, Thunderhawk pilot, Talons
Navar Hef, Lieutenant, Raptors
Xanda Neroka, Lieutenant, Raptors
Devor, Raptor
Kannak, Raptor
Drayk, Raptor
Garba, Raptor
Volb, Raptor
Fannas, Raptor
Sannad, Raptor
Kelpel, Raptor
Ghelt, Chooser of the Slain, Dark Fury assault squad
Korin, Mor Deythan
Shray Chavyon, Provisional lieutenant, Black Guard
Balsar Kurthuri, Chief Librarian of the XIX Legion
Syth Arriax, Librarian
Fara Tex, Librarian
Noriz, Captain, VII Legion
Annovuldi, Warsmith, IV Legion
Kasati Nuon, Battle-brother, VIII Legion
Kardozia, Dreadnought, Iron Father of the X Legion
Arcatus Vindix Centurio, Legio Custodes
Nasturi Ephrenia, Strategium controller of the battle-barge Avenger
Connra Deakon, Astropath, Avenger
Elvvix Jasson, Watch-captain, Shadowed Guardian
Fasuusi, Navigator, Shadowed Guardian
Khira, Captain, legionary commander of the Providence
Vabus, Lieutenant, legionary commander of the Revenant
Marcus Valerius, Vice-Caesari of the Therion Cohort
Pelon, Tribune
Theuril, Mechanicum magos
Warriors of the Rout
Ogvai Ogvai Helmschrot, Wolf Lord of Tra
Amlodhi Skarssen, Wolf Lord of Fyf
Sturgard Joriksson, Wolf Lord of Tra-Tra
Oki, Called Scarred, Wolf Lord of Tolv
Rathvin, Former watch-pack leader
Bjorn, Called Fell-handed, pack leader
Enemies of the Imperium
Horus Lupercal, Warmaster, arch-traitor, Primarch of the Sons of Horus
Ezekyle Abaddon, First Captain, commander of the Justaerin
Alpharius, Lord of Serpents, Primarch of the Alpha Legion
Delerax, Lieutenant commander, World Eaters
Prologue
The sound of Corax’s footsteps resounded along the plain stone walls of the corridor.
Above him, Deliverance was almost deserted. It would take many more years to rebuild the strength of the Raven Guard, but his successors had that task in hand. They had been warned not to look to him for leadership any longer. They would forge their own futures – not just Raven Guard, but Raptors, Black Guard, and all the others who had yet to choose their names.
A new age, a new order.
Guilliman had, as always, been the best prepared for what had come after.
What needed to come after.
There was little enough left for Corax to fight for. Fragile hope had given way to desperation, before nihilism and then vengeance had carried him through the following years. Now he was empty, his father dead, his brothers...
He did not want to think about his brothers.
His strides were laboured. The burden that weighed him down was greater than any physical load. It was only determination that carried him along – or perhaps stubbornness; it was impossible to separate the two feelings now. Righteousness had always played second part to humility in the Ravenlord and, now that it had gone, all that was left was a vague pragmatism.
This was a task that needed to be carried out, no matter how awful, no matter the significance for himself.
So Corax had come here, to the Red Level. A place that had given the prisoners of Lycaeus nightmares. The torture cells, the haunt of the most depraved guards and the scene of such exploitation and degradation that it had seemed almost incredible, at least until the excesses perpetrated by Fulgrim and his decadent Legion had eclipsed all else.
Here, Corax had buried his shame, hidden those too far gone even for a clean death on the battlefields of the Scouring.
The solution was clear to him.
He had known it for a long time, but he could not convince others of its truth.
The Imperium did not need his ilk. The galaxy was changed forever, and mortal men were best left to run their own affairs. If they were to fail then it would be by their own mistakes.
Nevermore would they be the pawns of flawed demigods.
There was only one task left to him to complete.
One
It was quicker for Hef to take the stairs on all fours, using the leverage of his long arms to clear each flight with two leaps. He rebounded around each landing, his momentum carrying him up the next set of steps. Behind him more Raptors tried to keep up; some of them laboured under their deformities.
He could smell the Night Lords on the upper decks – the scent brought out an unstoppable desire to kill. Hef tried to justify it as a righteous hatred of his wicked foes, but he knew that it was far more primal in origin. Some had been wounded earlier in the boarding action and their blood had brought forth the animal instinct of a predator.
As he reached the command deck a hail of bolts greeted him, cracked armour and ripped chunks from his altered flesh. He ignored the blood that streamed from his injuries and ran along the short corridor. The Night Lords, seven of them, retreated quickly, but not so swiftly that they reached the sanctuary of the main bridge before Hef caught them. He leapt the last three metres, and his unsheathed claws speared into the closest as though his war-plate were made of synth-leather.
A chainsword bit into his shoulder, the first blow that registered anything like pain. Snarling, Hef threw out a clawed hand and tore the faceplate from his attacker. The Night Lord reeled back just as the other Raptors caught up with Hef. Garba, the first, felled the wounded Night Lord with a well-placed knife blow, the deadly blade wielded in his prehensile tail.
Kannak barrelled into the traitors at full speed; the jutting spines and armoured ridges that covered most of his body turned him into a living battering ram. Scaled green skin nearly luminescent in the ship’s combat lighting, Volb followed close behind.
A close-range bolter shot caught Hef in the side of the head. The round glanced from his skull to explode a few centimetres away. The detonation ripped open skin but thankfully penetrated no deeper. Hef stumbled sideways, stunned by the concussive blast so close to his ear.
The bark of fire and rasp of chain weapons rang oddly to Hef. Still dizzy, he retreated a few paces and allowed his brothers to push on without him. They secured the main bridge door over the bodies of the remaining Night Lords, though the corpses of two Raptors spilled thick blood across the decking among the fallen traitors.
Two more dead. Hef updated his mental tally. Three hundred and twenty-four Raptors remained.
‘Engines secured, lieutenant,’ Neroka reported over the comm-device that had been riveted into place over Hef’s ear and jaw. ‘Human crew, a couple of renegade tech-priests. All dead, as ordered. We lost Fannas and Kelpel.’
Three hundred and twenty-two. Hef couldn’t remember why he had started counting, only that
it seemed important now. The tally had started at four hundred and eleven.
‘Finish your lower deck sweep,’ the lieutenant growled, taking his time to form the words properly with his misshapen mouth. ‘We have the command deck.’
‘Lieutenant!’ Devor’s shout from beyond the door brought Hef quickly into the bridge. He found his old friend standing beside one of the communications positions. Its servitor was decapitated, the head still hanging from the cables that attached it to the console. The other half-men had also been destroyed, their chests ripped out or skulls caved in.
‘They did this before we boarded,’ said Devor. ‘They really didn’t want us examining the servitor cores.’
‘Too long dead for taste-memory too,’ added Kannak. The Raptor stood in the centre of the command chamber to ensure none of his long spines caught on the servitor corpses. ‘I think they did this the moment we started overhauling them.’
Hef activated the manual display of the comm-feed. The last contact had been three weeks earlier. So had the one before that. The message source and destination was different for both. Examining the previous logs, it was obvious that a great deal of communications traffic had passed through the ship.
‘I count at least four separate Night Lords vessels in-system with this ship before its last translation,’ Hef told the others. He continued scrolling through the log. ‘Five. Six. Six ships. With this one, that makes seven traitor vessels in one place. That can’t be good news.’
‘They must have done this to stop us finding out where they were going,’ said Devor.
Hef activated the ship’s internal vox.
‘Neroka, do you have Magos Theuril with you?’
‘Yes, lieutenant. She is stabilising the engine core. I think the Night Lords tried to scuttle the ship but we got here first.’
‘Have her access the Geller field generator records. I want to know how long this ship was in warp space last jump.’
‘I have something here,’ said Drayk from beside the navigation position. The screen’s glow glinted on the tusks that jutted from his malformed jaw. ‘The results of the post-translation scan. They arrived here to the galactic north-west of the standard orbital plane.’
‘Bring up a chart,’ said Hef, crossing to join Drayk. The display rippled with a star field and then zoomed in, centring on their current position in the Sellacis System. The lieutenant’s claws prevented him from manipulating the display himself and he gestured for Drayk to continue with the controls. ‘Slide back along their axis of arrival.’
Drayk did so as they waited for Theuril’s report. Hef tapped his claws on the brushed steel console. A few minutes later Neroka contacted Hef.
‘Lieutenant, the Magos says that the ship was in warp for thirteen or fourteen days.’
‘Thank you, Neroka.’
‘But she said it made four short jumps previous to that. It reminded her of an intersystem shuttle run. Two hundred and eight hours each way, every time give or take a couple of hours.’
‘A warp channel. Or stable beacon.’
‘A channel in these storms? Has to be a beacon, I think.’
Hef flicked an impatient claw, indicating for Drayk to move the display the equivalent of seventy-five light years back towards the ship’s assumed point of origin.
‘There!’ He jabbed a claw at the screen. ‘Oddyssian System. Seventy-one light years from here. It has an Old Night beacon – that would explain the short jumps.’
Drayk spooled the control wheel to enlarge the view to include the nearby systems. ‘Damn...’
‘What?’
The other Raptor traced a line with his gauntlet, linking the Oddyssian star with another. ‘There’s only one system within eight and a half days. It’s Dexius.’
‘Dexius?’ said Devor. ‘Where Lord Corax is mustering the Legion?’
A flush of apprehension ran through Hef as he absorbed this information. He keyed his vox to open a full-channel transmission.
‘All units, abandon sweep. We are returning to the Fearless immediately.’ He cut the link and looked at his companions. ‘We need to warn the primarch. The Night Lords are going to attack Dexius.’
Agapito paced back and forth across the bridge of the Shadowed Guardian, but the commander of the Talons did not take his eyes from the main screen. The ship that had entered the system four days ago was little more than a brighter spark against the stars. It was a warship, but only a small escort. Even so, its presence was as welcome as a seal leak in an enviro-dome.
‘Hail them again,’ he snapped at his communications technician. ‘Make it clear that we will open fire if they raise their shields or power their weapons.’
The attendant nodded and spoke into the pick-up of his console.
‘Unidentified vessel, this is the battle-barge Shadowed Guardian of the Raven Guard Legion. You have entered void space of the Dexius System, currently under our aegis. Maintain course and do not raise power to any defensive or offensive systems. Identify yourselves immediately or be boarded.’
Static hissed in reply.
‘We’re going aboard,’ the commander told his subordinates. ‘Duty guard report to the starboard flight bay. Prepare a Thunderhawk for launch.’
‘Just five squads, commander?’ The watch captain, an unaugmented human called Elvvix Jasson, cocked his head in a gesture of unease. He smoothed his hands down his black uniform coat. ‘It may only be a frigate but it could house twice that number of traitors, commander.’
‘When you are triggering a trap, you only put in your finger, not your whole hand,’ said Agapito. ‘Any sign of trouble and we’ll withdraw and annihilate the ship from here.’
‘Beg your pardon, commander, but why not simply annihilate it right now?’
‘Intelligence. We need to find where it’s been. Also, we need every ship we can get. It could be abandoned, dumped here by the warp. Or a skeleton crew. Comms could have been destroyed.’
‘Of course, commander. I meant no insubordination.’
‘I know, Jasson. Being cautious, yes? Nothing wrong with that.’
Agapito accepted the watch captain’s salute with a nod and strode towards the main bridge doors. As he headed down the decks to the flight bay he unhooked his helmet from his belt. Before he put it on he ran the tip of a gauntleted finger across it, tracing the faint crack that ran from the top to just above the right eye lens. Most of his armour had been replaced over the last few years, but the helmet had stayed true, the same he had worn on the day that they had dropped into the Urgall Depression on Isstvan.
He remembered the moment the shell had exploded. A piece of shrapnel the size of his fist had struck his helm from the airburst. Other pieces of jagged metal had cut down two of his fellow Raven Guard to each side, just a couple of metres away.
With his eyes closed, the oily scent of the conveyor became the smell of blood. The rattle of the chains turned into the chatter of bolters; the buzz of the lumen globe became the hiss of las-blasts.
Agapito swallowed hard, not trying to fight the memories, welcoming them. The cries of the dying were a war song in his thoughts. The thunder of traitor guns was the beat of the drum to which he marched into battle.
With a creak and a bang the conveyor arrived at its destination. Agapito’s eyes flicked open, bringing him back to the present.
The doors opened. The commander stood for a moment longer, jaw clenched, eyes narrowed. Taking a breath, he put on his helmet and stepped out.
From just a few hundred metres away it was clear the ship had seen a lot of battle. Its hull was heavily scarred, some of the damage so recent that it hadn’t been repaired, leaving gaping rents in its flank. The engines were working, spitting fitful bursts of plasma. Its trajectory was slightly curving; the ship rolled slowly about its prow-stern axis, doubtless a consequence of its unorthodox exit from warp space
within the boundary of the Mandeville point.
The lamps of the Thunderhawk played over a stretch of the hull, illuminating plasma burns and large, pale patches of what Agapito knew to be ferrofoam. The close-range auspexes returned only minimal details – residual life signs perhaps, but almost impossible to distinguish from the nascent energies of the plasma reactor and environmental systems.
‘Could be someone aboard,’ said Vanda, examining the gunship’s scanning system.
‘Servitors, vermin, any number of things could still be alive on there without crew,’ replied Agapito.
‘Commander!’ The call from the pilot, Henn, drew their attention through the main canopy. He had lamps fixed on a particular stretch of the frigate’s prow. ‘Not quite so unidentified now.’
The lights showed up a circle of dark blue along the side of the beak-shaped ram. Upon it was a much faded Legion symbol: a winged skull.
‘Night Lords,’ growled Agapito.
The atmosphere in the cockpit grew even tenser. Agapito glared out of the canopy, fists on the console in front.
‘Trust nothing,’ he said. He glanced at Vanda’s screen. ‘Reactor in nominal mode, no chance of an overload.’
‘We should just go back and destroy it from the ship,’ said Vanda. ‘It has to be a trap, and we don’t need a frigate that badly.’
Inside his helm Agapito ground his teeth.
‘Nothing is what it seems with the Night Lords,’ warned Henn. ‘I concur with Vanda.’
Agapito turned his attention to the two other legionaries in the cockpit.
‘Did I ask for a vote?’ he growled. The two Raven Guard bowed their heads in silent apology. ‘But you are right. Henn, take us back to the battle-barge.’