by Gav Thorpe
It was Branne that pulled away first. He forced a smile.
‘We conquered the galaxy, Agapito. Two skinny prison boys not worth a spit. We saw the stars and walked beside immortals. Can’t complain about that.’
‘Damn right.’ Agapito laughed. ‘We would have been kings in lesser company!’
His laughter faded as Branne walked away, though Agapito watched him until he was lost amongst the Space Wolves.
Corax allowed himself to drift out of the awareness of those around him, moving from the conscious thoughts of his brother’s legionaries. Branne was already organising the remnants of the Raptors and the others were marshalling the rest of the Legion to orbit.
‘Is this channel secure? Can we be overheard?’
‘Fully encrypted,’ replied Nasturi Ephrenia. ‘I am alone as you requested, my lord.’
‘Call me Corax,’ he said. A promontory provided a convenient seat and he lowered himself onto it to gaze out over the bustle of activity below.
‘It’s been a long time since I used that name informally,’ said the controller. ‘What has been troubling you?’
‘You were the first face I saw, Nasturi. Alone, confused, abandoned. Yours was the first face in that cold, hard place where I woke.’
She said nothing, understanding that it was not her place to speak. Not yet.
‘I have been thinking about that moment a lot. That instant where past and future became one. What would have happened if the guards had found me first?’
‘I don’t understand, Corax.’
‘Could I have become something else? What is rooted in me, and what was grown by the company I kept? What if I had been raised by oppressors, and not the oppressed?’
‘That’s impossible to answer, Corax, and you know it.’
‘So help me. Tell me something good I’ve done. Something objectively beneficial.’
‘You saved my life,’ she said without hesitation. ‘That moment you are talking about? A second later, you killed the guard that had been my tormentor for as long as I could remember. You gave me his head as a gift. You never knew what that meant to me. I was so close to ending it. Even at that age, I was broken, without hope. I saw what they did to the others, what waited for me. Worse, if that guard had lived. I would have died soon enough, by his hand, or mine.’
‘I... You never spoke of this before.’
‘I didn’t have to. I saw you rip off the head of the man that had terrified and abused me since I was born, and then I knew that everything would be all right. I knew that we could fight back, that there was justice and it was clad in white skin and black hair.’
Corax suddenly remembered their meeting with such clarity that it hurt as much as the moment when it had happened, her pain writ so large on her infant features as the guard dragged her away by the hair. He had never seen it before in this way, but he could see it now – the absolute and personal terror she had felt in the grip of that man.
And her laugh, a reaction of sheer relief and delight when the young primarch had torn off the guard’s head.
His eyes searched the mustering army and settled upon Bjorn, who stood alone, watching the approaching enemy, the spear of Russ driven into the hard ground by his side.
‘We named you Corvus Corax for a reason,’ she told him. ‘The Saviour.’
‘Thank you,’ he said, and cut the vox-link.
The drop harness was uncomfortable. It bit into Hef’s flesh in strange places, not designed for his unnatural frame. He bore the discomfort in silence, holding back the growls that wanted to break free.
The pod was dark, almost pitch black. He could hear the reverberations through the hull of the Avenger. The thrum of void shield generators bursting into life. The steady rattle of macro cannons on the gun decks. The hiss of the massive dorsal turret turntable carrying the bombardment cannon and the thud of its firing.
The breathing of his companions was a mix of steady and laboured. Some of the Raptors hissed, panted and coughed, their breath coming from distorted throats and jaws, whistling from bestial nostrils.
Hef was no stranger to the wait before battle. His life had been filled with such since his induction into the Legion. Today he felt something else, something aside from the usual tension, the welcome anticipation.
He felt shame.
Nothing had been said, no accusation made, but he knew his actions had been responsible for the primarch’s change in attitude to the Raptors. The final act of condemnation had come when Branne, stony faced, had brought together the company and rearranged them into roughs and smooths. All of the roughs were gathered into a few squads, to be deployed together from the drop pods when called upon.
Hef could well guess what manner of attack awaited him and his deformed brothers. Corax had finally tired of the lie, of hiding his secret abominations. This would be their last battle, no matter what the outcome.
They had heard what had happened to the Therion Cohort before the jump to Yarant, despatched to a war that nobody could win. Hef did not know what the Imperial Army soldiers had done to displease the primarch, but it could not have been anything worse than what Hef had done to Woundweaver and his watch-pack.
Thoughts of the Space Wolf’s death brought a fresh surge of guilt.
Hef whined. He could not stop himself. It crawled from his throat unbidden, sharp and loud in the confines of the drop pod.
He hated himself more each moment. He hated what he was becoming, and the weakness within him that made him succumb to his own darkness. He was slipping away and the worst part was that he knew it. There would be a moment, a line crossed, when it would no longer matter, but until then he felt every second of his slide into feral insanity. The flesh could be tortured no more but his mind plunged into fresh depths.
‘Finish,’ he growled, wrapping his clawed hands around the restraints. His limbs trembled, filled with frustration and pain, desiring release. ‘Finish!’
To stand as one warrior against the force of the traitors that surged across the valley was to be a pebble cast against the incoming tide but together the Raven Guard and Space Wolves faced the threat. Branne saw Corax emerge from the stronghold with Bjorn and the Wolf Lords. There was no sign of Leman Russ and his mood sank a little. Another primarch on the field of battle would have eased his thoughts.
The Sons of Russ made much ceremony of their preparations, and daubed their armour and faces with bloody handprints. There were chanting and howls, guttural oaths and the brandishing of weapons as they swore themselves to saga-worthy deeds. Branne saw wildness in the eyes of many – an animal glare he recognised all too well from the most devolved of the Raptors.
The followers of the Warmaster had spent the hours well, taking stock of the situation and planning accordingly. This was no hunt for the remnants of a Legion and their incapacitated leader, this was all-out war to exterminate the warriors of Corax and Russ. They advanced fast, sparing only the briefest time for a preliminary bombardment, trusting to proximity to protect them against attack from orbit.
It was a strange feeling for Branne, to finally have an inkling of what it must have been like on Isstvan, waiting for the inevitable blow to fall. There had been little by way of report from the battlefleet, but he had to believe that the greater number of the traitor vessels would soon be returning to Yarant, and would destroy the Raven Guard’s last lifeline within hours. He had been present when Corax had ordered the remaining Natollian and Therion ship commanders to die fighting, to rain down death upon the traitors for as long as possible and then to turn their guns against the enemy ships.
The clamour of the Space Wolves, of clarions and war shouts swelled up around him.
He found himself strangely calm, accepting of this fate.
Commander Branne Nev readied his weapons.
The Raptors fell in behind the primarch, as did the Wolve
s, as though they had adopted the Ravenlord in the absence of their own commander. The Fenrisian companies advanced at speed, quickly outpacing the Raven Guard contingents, moving to meet the wave of legionaries that poured across the hillsides.
The VI Legion’s veterans took up overwatch positions and opened fire with heavier weapons, gunning down the enemy warriors that tried to outflank them. Russ’s Wolf Guard and several squads kept closer to Corax, guarding his back even as shells and missiles fell amongst them once more. The crash of the hearth-ship guns was lost in the tumult of gunship engines and battle cannons and the incessant snarl of thousands of bolters.
Movement above drew Corax’s eye – gunships that bore the livery and markings of a different master to the warriors marching from the east. Not the blue of the Alpha Legion, but the dark war-plate of the XVI Legion’s First Company elite.
So, the Sons of Horus were in force here, too. How portentous that renaming now seemed. In a single act, the dedication of the Luna Wolves to the Warmaster seemed in hindsight to be the culmination of all the ambition and selfishness that had manifested in Horus.
Corax watched as the many gunships disgorged squads of warriors wearing heavy Terminator armour, supported by at least a dozen Dreadnoughts. For whatever reason, Horus had sent his very best to ensure the destruction of his brother Russ.
The Ravenlord turned his attention back to the onrushing Legions. When the traitors were almost upon the line of Space Wolves, Corax took to the air and ascended in a spiral.
And then he disappeared.
It had been too long. The Avenger had fallen quiet, only the constant throb of reactors and void shields to disturb the calm.
Hef reached out a claw and flicked the communicator pick-up into life.
‘Command? Is Pod Two-Seven. No launch. Is malfunction, perhaps?’
‘Pod Two-Seven. No malfunction. No launch order given. Lord Corax has direct authorisation for Raptor launch protocols.’
‘Lord Corax?’
‘That is correct, Lieutenant Hef. We are awaiting the primarch’s direct order.’
‘Understood.’
Hef deactivated the vox. He could feel the eyes of the others upon him, but did not look up to meet their gaze.
Lord Corax had taken command of the Raptors away from Branne?
‘It’s just us, Hef,’ said Devor, from the harness to his left. ‘Just the roughs. The smooths went down with Branne, I’m sure.’
‘What is he waiting for?’ asked Sannad, his voice a hoarse whisper, the light of the drop pod casting a ruddy sheen over his milky-white flesh. ‘We can fight!’
Hef knew why. He owed it to the others to explain.
‘Last fight, for us.’ His nostrils flared at the thought. ‘Primarch send us into last battle only. Not want to show us unless nobody survive as witness.’
Cloaked by his unnatural power, Corax scythed into the unsuspecting World Eaters. Claws and wings slashed bloody ruin through the advancing ranks, leaving gouges of dismembered legionaries in his wake. He turned, rose, and fell again, decapitating a score of foes with his next pass.
Confusion rippled out through the army as this unseen blade sliced through its warriors. Focused on nothing but the death of his enemies, Corax swooped and ascended and dived again, each time carving ragged furrows through the companies of armoured warriors ascending the hill. Blasts from his pistol burst through the thickest plate, making short work of those that tried to retreat from the unseen apparition churning through their squad-brothers.
Though a hundred fell to his attacks in the first minutes, ten times that number surged onwards, unheeding of the terror assailing their companions, intent only on bringing the final humiliation to the Wolf King and his sons.
Corax watched Bjorn and the Wolves meet the incoming horde with their own charge. The spear he had taken from the hand of his unconscious lord was a glittering thunderbolt that flashed and burned, and each strike of its gilded head left half a dozen dead legionaries scattered over the scorched ground.
The Wolves of Fenris moved ceaselessly through the hail of autocannon and bolter fire, always one step away from the aim of their enemies, their plate sparking with the few rounds that found their mark.
A World Eaters Terminator broke from the melee and rushed Bjorn, twin chainfists splashing the blood of the Wolf King’s sons. Bjorn thrust out with his own clawed gauntlet, its blades piercing the warrior’s thick breastplate with apparent ease.
Corax killed a score more of the legionaries and worked his way back to his brother’s elite guard. Like a bloody whirlwind, he wove and turned, hacking apart those traitors that briefly eluded the Wolf Guard’s murderous swings and thrusts. The World Eaters did not relent, their implants forcing them into assault after assault that left them torn asunder by the wrath of the Ravenlord and his unlikely allies, their armour and flesh scattered as though tossed into the whirring blades of a gyroplane.
Around them the Raptors and Space Wolves formed into a tight defensive cordon, assailed on all sides by the combined fury of the Thousand Sons and Alpha Legion alongside even more of the World Eaters.
Only the Sons of Horus had yet to commit.
Hef waited, listened to his breath coming in gasps. The order had to come now. It would take several minutes for the drop to complete – surely the primarch would call for his Raptors soon.
He activated the vox again.
‘Command, is Hef again. Boost secure channel to Lieutenant Neroka.’
‘Understood, lieutenant.’ There was a slight pause. ‘Your signal is being relayed now.’
‘Neroka?’
‘Hef?’ A grunt and burst of breath indicated that the other lieutenant was engaged in some strenuous physical activity. ‘I’m in the middle of a bloody fight here, where are you?’
‘On drop pod, waiting.’
A series of snarls and curses punctuated the next few seconds.
‘Why haven’t you dropped?’
‘Waiting for Lord Corax’s personal command.’
‘Well, we could certainly use you here, my friend. This battlezone is getting hotter than the furnace rooms. What is the primarch waiting for?’
Hef did not want to answer that question, but there was something he had to say.
‘I was wrong. About Woundweaver. We not meant to know fear, but I could not let Space Wolves attack Lord Corax because of us. I am sorry.’
There was no reply.
‘Neroka? Are you there?’
Only static answered.
Landing next to the grizzled Wolf Lord Sturgard Joriksson, Corax felt chainaxes and bolts biting into his armour from all sides, but he paid them no heed. Every flick of a wing, every twist of a claw, ended another traitor life. Each second brought him closer to removing the taint within himself, the corruption that was inherent in his creation and that of his brothers.
It was time to end it. Time to pay the price in blood.
He opened a vox-channel to the Avenger. ‘Prime the pod cascade for drop-assault. On my next signal.’
‘Affirmative, my lord, preparing for final wave drop.’ Ephrenia’s voice cracked as she replied, overcome by the moment. ‘Goodbye, Corax.’
He said nothing, plunging his claws into the gut of another legionary. So engrossed was he in the carnage that he did not hear the whine of the incoming shells and the hiss of missile jets until it was too late. By the time Sturgard heard it too, he barely had time to turn.
The first detonation parted the primarch and the Space Wolves, exploding right between them. The second hit Corax square in the chest as he leapt into the air, knocking him back to the ground. The third and fourth and more became a deafening, all-consuming storm of noise and fire that battered his body and ripped apart the ground around him.
He could feel his armour breaking under the pounding, his flesh splitting
and burning, bones trembling under the ferocity of the artillery attack. Through the flashes he could just about see Bjorn struggle to his feet, spear lifted in defiance even as a frag missile exploded across his pauldron and showered him with white-hot metal shards. He fell amongst the broken bodies of a trio of Wolf Guard, the spear fallen from his grasp.
Corax’s thoughts turned to the Wolf King lying broken and helpless in the last fortress of the Space Wolves.
Helpless for the first time in his unnatural life.
The Ravenlord had never turned from a single soul who had needed his aid. Would he really let his enemies murder the wounded primarch? Did his own desire for penance have such a grip on him?
From the height of the mountain flew a banner that he knew well – the standard of the Warmaster’s reviled First Captain, Abaddon. Though Horus himself had not come to Yarant, he had despatched his right hand to oversee the final destruction of the VI.
The image of that banner was burned into Corax’s mind, and one like it but far grander that had flown above the hills over the Urgall Depression.
The all-seeing icon of the Warmaster, the Eye of Horus.
I am the Emperor’s vigilance, it had once read, and the Eye of Terra.
Such arrogance, such selfishness to turn the Imperium upon itself at the greatest moment in its history. The vanity of it appalled Corax, filled him with a loathing greater than that he had held for all his gaolers combined.
He rolled to his hands and knees, his wings a crippled mass of metal and wire trailing from his back. He slashed free of their entangling burden and stood up, swaying to one side as a rocket seared past his cheek and exploded amongst the circle of corpses around him and his brother’s surviving lieutenants.
Horus still lived, still threatened Terra, still threatened the Emperor himself.
‘What am I doing?’ Corax whispered.
This was the price. This was his weregeld. To survive. To fight.
To feel the pain each and every day.