The Talon of Horus

by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

  ‘My apologies for the delay. The storm made for unkind sailing.’

  He beckoned me up to the raised dais with a voice of gravel and grit. ‘I heard you fell at Drol Kheir.’

  ‘I was on the right side at Drol Kheir,’ I replied. ‘For once.’

  In better times, Falkus had been one of the highest ranking officers of the XVI Legion. His armour still bore the treasured gold breastplate awarded to him by his gene-father, with its lidless eye open wide in burnished judgement. The twisting touch of Eyespace had changed him since we last met, with ivory spines jutting from his knuckles and elbows, and his horned helm-crown showing as feral claim of authority over his brethren. The warp was slowly reshaping his physical form to reflect his cold-blooded lethality.

  Most telling of all, his faceplate sported brutal tusks in personification of his defiance and viciousness. A trait seen often among the Nine Legions’ Terminator elite.

  As with most of us in that indecorous age, his first allegiance was to his warband and those warriors he could trust above all others. His clan was formed from the companies he’d once commanded in the war, and the converts he’d gained in the centuries that stretched out after the Siege of Terra. They called themselves the Duraga kal Esmejhak – ‘the grey that follows fire’ – an old Cthonian term of mourning, referencing the ashes that remain after a body’s cremation.

  It was a maudlin name, for the shame of defeat burned deep within him. Yet I admired him for facing it with a dark sense of humour rather than denying it outright. Or worse, worshipping the failures of the past.

  Falkus’s hand turned as we advanced, becoming a sign of warding. ‘Just you, brother.’

  My companions halted. Gyre needed no boots to bind herself to the deck, the wolf stalked around the chamber sniffing at corpses despite the breathless air, prowling as a true wolf would prowl. I could feel her awareness, her senses attuning to our surroundings. She needed no warning to remain cautious.

  Mekhari and Djedhor were Mekhari and Djedhor. If we are attacked, I sent to them both, destroy every warrior who acts against us.

  Khayon, Mekhari replied in bland acknowledgement. Djedhor nodded without a word. Both Rubricae’s gauntleted fingers tightened in the same second as they clutched their bolters to their chests.

  I made my way up to the raised dais alone. ‘Your summons was vague,’ I said to Falkus.

  ‘It had to be vague. Where is the White Seer?’

  ‘Commanding the Tlaloc in my absence.’

  ‘And where is your alien?’ A sudden distaste ripened his voice. ‘Is your pain-leech not at your side?’

  ‘Much to her displeasure, she is also still aboard the Tlaloc.’

  She had to remain there. Even if I could have trusted her among these warriors with her hunger so sharp, she was unable to operate in a place with no atmosphere. Her wings made any void-suit into something worthlessly cumbersome.

  Falkus gestured to my right hand, which rested on the leatherbound case of the ragged and mismatched parchment cards chained to my belt. His horned helm so perfectly mirrored the rockslide growl of his voice across the vox.

  ‘I see more cards in your deck than when we last crossed paths.’

  He couldn’t see the smile behind my faceplate, though he surely heard the amusement in my reply.

  ‘A few more,’ I admitted. ‘I have not been idle.’

  ‘You expect trouble?’

  ‘I expect nothing, I am merely prepared. Where are the others?’

  He exhaled softly. ‘You and Ashur-Kai are the last likely to arrive, Khayon. We’ve been here weeks without any word. Lheor was insisting you were dead, as well.’

  ‘I almost was.’

  We had history, Falkus and I. We trusted one another to the degree it was possible to trust any other soul of the Nine Legions. He was a patient man when not filled with a battlefield’s icy rage. We had served together more than once – first in the Great Crusade, then during the Siege of Terra itself, and afterwards once we reached our new lives in the Great Eye.

  ‘So why have I sailed all the way here?’ I asked him.

  ‘Wait for Lheor. Then I will explain everything.’

  When Lheor’s boarding party arrived, they entered without ceremony or order. A pack of warriors among soldiers, walking without formation. Helms crested with stylised crowns wrought into the War God’s symbol regarded the chamber. Their brass-edged battleplate was the colour of blood on iron, showing the resealed cracks of endless repair and mismatched scavenging.

  None of them made the pretence of sweeping the area with their bolters. Most didn’t even carry standard bolters; they held chainaxes in their hands, chained to their wrists, or carried massive rotor cannons slung over their shoulders. None of them took up defensive positions against the spread of gun barrels tracking their movements. That degree of caution seemed beyond them. Either that, or they simply trusted Falkus and his men to the point such care was unnecessary.

  Their leader carried a heavy bolter with the practised grace of one born to the burden. This, he tossed in the gravity-less air to one of his underlings, and gestured for his men to remain by the southward entrance.

  Before the war, he had been Centurion Lheorvine Ukris of the XII Legion’s 50th Heavy Support Company. I hadn’t known him then. Our association came in the years of dwelling within the Empire of the Eye.

  Lheor made his way directly to the dais, standing before Falkus, who in turn stood before the dead ship’s control throne. The body of the vessel’s former captain was a figure of pale, ice-dusted armour.

  The World Eater glanced at it, sparing the corpse no more than half a second of attention. Then he turned to me, with blue eye lenses and a mouth grille that had been forged into an image of clenched teeth in a death’s-head grin. He didn’t greet me. He didn’t even greet Falkus, whom he regarded next. He stood there, watching us both as we watched him.

  ‘Your tarot deck of dubious heresies looks thicker, sorcerer,’ he said to me.

  ‘It is, Lheor.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ Lheor’s tone indicated it was anything but. ‘I heard you died at Drol Kheir.’

  ‘I came close.’

  ‘So, do either of you plan to tell me why I’m here?’

  ‘You are here because I need you,’ said Falkus. ‘I need both of you.’

  ‘Where are the others?’ Lheor asked. ‘Palavius? Estakhar?’

  Falkus shook his head. ‘Lupercalios has fallen.’

  Neither of us replied. Not immediately, at least. Words do not come easily when you are told that a Legion is dead.

  There were always rumours among the Legions’ drifting fleets, rumours of a Sons of Horus fortress falling, or a XVI Legion outpost being destroyed. Their extinction was an assured threat echoed by hundreds of commanders and warlords down the decades, whenever ships met at neutral space ports or came together in unity for slave raids.

  And now we were being told it had finally happened. I wasn’t sure whether to be stunned at the possibility, or offended that the Tlaloc hadn’t been invited into the raiding fleet.

  ‘The Monument has fallen?’ Lheor asked. ‘I’ve heard that tale a thousand times, and it’s never been true yet.’

  Falkus’s voice, already resonantly low, became tectonic. ‘You think I would jest about something so grave? The Emperor’s Children descended upon us, leading vessels from every other Legion. The Monument is gone. It no longer exists beyond ashen ruin.’

  ‘So that’s why your fleet looks half murdered,’ Lheor replied. There was no doubt this time, he was smiling behind his snarling faceplate. ‘Fresh from fleeing the loss of your final fortress.’

  ‘Lupercalios was not the final fortress. We have others.’

  ‘It was the only one that mattered though, eh?’ Lheor’s cranial implants played havoc with his nervous system. Convulsing
twitches made his shoulders jerk and his fingers spasm at irregular intervals. It was best to ignore these tics. Pointing them out tended to irritate him, and he was unreasonable enough even when in good temper.

  Falkus conceded the point with a nod. Lupercalios, the Monument, was a mausoleum to the XVI Legion as much as a stronghold. It was where the body of their primarch had been interred after the Terran Breaking. Few of the other Legions were permitted anywhere near the Sons’ last bastion.

  ‘How many of you are left?’ I asked. ‘How many Sons of Horus still draw breath?’

  ‘For all we know, the Duraga kal Esmejhak are the last. Others will surely have escaped, but...’ He let the words hang in the air.

  ‘The body,’ I said softly.

  Falkus knew of what I spoke. ‘They took it.’

  Lheor’s laughter was rough across the vox. ‘They didn’t burn it?’

  ‘They took it.’

  The remains of Horus Lupercal – who in time we would come to call the First and False Warmaster – plundered from where they lay in state at the heart of a fortress risen to celebrate his failure.

  I exhaled slowly, turning my thoughts to why the Emperor’s Children would plunder his bones. A simple act of desecration? Possible, possible. The III Legion were rarely restrained in such acts of decadence. But this act rang with stronger significance. I could almost hear the warp whisper of it, though the warp can whisper of anything and everything. Only a fool heeds every song it sings.

  Falkus said, ‘I summoned you here–’

  ‘Asked,’ Lheor interrupted, and gestured across the vast bridge deck to where his men malingered by the southern entrance. ‘You asked the Fifteen Fangs to attend. We do not respond to summons.’

  Predictably, Falkus ignored Lheor’s baiting. He reached to tap his fingertips against his heart three times, a Cthonian gesture of sincerity. Watch any one of us, no matter how long we dwell within the Eye’s unreal tides, and you will always see echoes of the cultures into which we were born.

  But I remember how Falkus hesitated, then. A reluctance so unlike him, as pride warred with practicality. Now that we were here, he hesitated to ask for our help.

  ‘I turned to those I could trust,’ he admitted. ‘Those who have been my allies in the past. You know why they took the Warmaster’s body,’ he said. It wasn’t a question. As long as the Nine Legions had lived in the Eye, there had been whispers of taking the corpse to be used in ways beyond storage in a war museum.

  A primarch’s bones... What an offering that would make. What a gift to the powers behind the veil. There was more to this than common theft and decadence.

  ‘I’m not sure I want to know,’ Lheor muttered. ‘Their idea of ritual desecration is–’

  I shook my head, cutting him off. ‘They took it to harvest it. To reap its genetic bounty.’

  The Sons of Horus legionary nodded. Cloning wasn’t a word easily spoken by any warrior within the Nine Legions. Even here, in our lawless hell-realm, some sins remained vile. Cloning our kind has rarely worked well. Something in our genetics wracks the process, breeding certain unwelcome instabilities. Cloning a primarch? That was beyond any of us. Probably beyond anyone but the Emperor of Mankind, before his enthronement as a corpse upon his soul engine.

  ‘They can’t clone Horus,’ said Lheor. ‘No one can.’

  ‘It’s been done once before,’ Falkus pointed out.

  The World Eater gave a piggish snort across the vox. ‘You mean Abaddon? Don’t piss a legend over us and tell me it’s raining truth.’

  I allowed him that rather strained wordplay without interrupting. ‘Why would they do it?’ Lheor continued. ‘To what gain? Horus failed once, and he had half of the Imperium marching under his banner. No second chances.’

  ‘Can you really see no worth in resurrecting the First Primarch?’ Falkus asked.

  ‘Nothing I’d trouble myself for,’ the World Eater admitted.

  ‘Khayon? I knew Lheor would be half blind in this, but what of you? Can you truly see no threat in a primarch’s rebirth?’

  I could see nothing but threat. The spiritual and ritual possibilities made my skull ache.

  To sacrifice a living primarch to the Four Gods...

  To eat the Warmaster’s beating heart and warm brain, tasting and stealing his strength...

  To raise an army of malformed simulacrums in the First Primarch’s image...

  ‘Horus Reborn would win the Legion Wars,’ I ventured.

  Falkus nodded, shifting his stance. ‘And more than that. He would be the only primarch still mortal. The only one still able to invade the Imperium.’

  ‘But cloning,’ Lheor said the word as a curse, with a legionary’s instinctive disgust. He didn’t want to believe even the decadent III were capable of such sacrilege. ‘And why are you against this plan? Don’t you want him back?’

  Falkus was a shrewd, viciously cunning soul. I trusted his judgement, and his reply only confirmed why.

  ‘It wouldn’t be Horus Lupercal,’ he said to Lheor. ‘Every one of the Sons of Horus felt our father die when the Emperor swallowed his soul. Whatever revenant the Third Legion seeks to raise, it would be a soulless husk born from our father’s bones.’ Low, angry frustration throbbed from his thoughts. ‘They’ve already driven us to the edge of extinction. Isn’t that enough? Must they piss on our bones?’

  Lheor and I shared another look. The World Eater spoke again, looking back to Falkus.

  ‘Tell us what you want, brother. If Lupercalios is gone, what’s left for you? You can hardly lay siege to the Canticle City just to burn Horus’s remains.’

  Falkus said nothing, which said it all. Lheor’s laugh was throaty and nasty.

  ‘Don’t even think about it, Widowmaker. Be reasonable. You want to hide? We can hide you. You want to run? Then start running. But don’t cast your ambitions towards the Canticle City. The Third Legion will burn you to ash before you set eyes on their fortress.’

  ‘First,’ Falkus said patiently, ‘I need a neutral port. One to repair and refit my fleet.’

  ‘Gallium,’ I said. ‘The Tlaloc was there not long ago.’

  ‘I am loath to test the Governess’s patience. With the way the Sons of Horus are hunted now, Gallium is a last resort.’

  Gallium was one of the Mechanicum’s many city-states. One of the IV Legion claimed it as his protectorate and deferred leadership to a ranking Martian adept. According to the Tlaloc’s internal chronometry, we had last docked there eleven months ago. That might translate as five minutes or fifteen years back at the world we’d left behind, given the storm we’d passed through.

  Ceraxia and Valicar, the governess and guardian of Gallium, were famously aggressive in their refusal to commit to the Legion Wars. Neutrality was worth more to them than fuel, ammunition and glory. Falkus was right – his presence there now as a hunted exile would strain their refusal to enter the Legion Wars.

  ‘Rearm and refuel.’ Lheor lifted a shoulder in a whirring shrug. ‘But what do you hope to achieve after that? Even with your fleet repaired, your Legion is as dead as Khayon’s.’ He gestured to Mekhari and Djedhor, and said, ‘No offence intended.’

  ‘None taken,’ I assured him.

  Lheor turned back to Falkus. ‘I assume you asked us here to prevail on old allegiances, eh? Your hospitality is appreciated, but I could’ve sent my refusal ahead and kept the White Hound elsewhere. You interrupted a fruitful raiding campaign.’

  ‘Such ingratitude? You owe me, Lheorvine.’

  Lheor stood face to face with Falkus, breastplate to breastplate. This is often how it is with Legion warbands, even those that are ostensibly allied. Posturing is something of an art, as is recalling the minutiae of debts owed and accrued. We take it very seriously.

  ‘I owe you, brother. Not your Legion. I refuse to die with them. You want to r
un? I said I’ll help you run. You want to hide? I’ll even help you turn into a coward if that’s what you suddenly desire. But I’m not going against a Third Legion armada because you’re weeping over the Emperor’s Children stealing your father’s corpse. You earned this fate when you fled Terra and cost us the war.’

  The old accusation. The accusation that had blighted the Sons of Horus in their exile, and had seen them run before the guns of the Nine Legions’ warships ever since the death of their primarch.

  This was going nowhere. I rested my hands on both warriors’ shoulders and forced them a few steps apart.

  ‘Enough. We lost the war when the Warmaster lost control of the Legions at Terra. We had already failed by the time Horus fell.’

  ‘Never argue with a Tizcan,’ Lheor muttered. ‘This still stinks of madness, Falkus. We’re speaking about preternatural archeoscience, the Emperor’s genetic artwork. What hope does a mundane fleshcrafter really have? It will take them an eternity to gene-forge something like a primarch. The Emperor himself could only create twenty of the cursed things, and that took decades.’

  ‘I’m not willing to take the risk,’ Falkus replied, his voice cold and harsh. He was a choleric man, but his anger manifested as ice rather than fire. When Falkus Kibre lost his temper, he lost his facade of warmth. ‘We cannot hide in this storm forever. The Tlaloc was the last to arrive. Any others who would have answered the call are dead, lost, or too late to matter. No more delays. No more running. You both swore to aid me when I called upon you.’

  Though our helms denied eye contact, I could feel his stare meeting mine as I spoke. ‘You have a plan?’

  ‘See for yourself.’

  The Sons of Horus legionary produced a hand-held hololithic projector, and thumbed its activation sigil. Harsh green light flickered into being, playing across his armour as the image stuttered its way to resolution.

  It showed a ship. Even rendered down into a flickering holo of unhealthy jade light, the scale of the warship was evident enough to steal my breath. An immense battleship, majestic beyond majesty, with its spinal fortresses and armoured prow delineating the bulky murderousness of a Scylla-pattern variant of the ancient Gloriana-class hull.