by John French
‘But... victory...’ Alpharius gasped.
Dorn rammed the spear through his brother’s chest. The tip punched through the power plant on the back of Alpharius’ armour. Alpharius’ mouth opened, his eyes wide. A great wash of blood poured from between his teeth. Dorn held him on the spear, the two so close that it seemed almost an embrace. The air around them was blurring like a heat haze as the blood struck the floor.
A high wail was rising with a coil of wind, which circled the pair. Alpharius’ mouth moved, forming words. Dorn was still for a second, his eyes blank and black in the carved stone of his face. Then he pushed Alpharius away. Snakes of light writhed through the air. The primarch of the Alpha Legion staggered, mouth still moving.
Rogal Dorn brought Storm’s Teeth around. The blade cut down through Alpharius’ skull, and then tore free in a spray of blood and a detonation of light.
Six
Trans-Plutonian region
The last planet of the Solar System turned in silence.
Explosions flashed.
Ships glittered like snow falling through a winter night.
Lives ended. They ended in small spaces with the air sucked away, in the roar of gunfire pouring through passages, in the spinning blackness where the last sight given to them was the blink of explosions and the light of stars.
And they ended in the heart of a moon, with the blood of a being who had been more than human, but less than a god, pooling on a floor of cold iron.
Rogal Dorn, Praetorian of Terra, looked down at the corpse of his brother. Around him, the world turned. Groups of warriors appeared in fresh flashes of teleportation light. They spread through the vault, as the doors crashed open and Kestros ran in, and saw a sight that none would have believed. A moment that should have stopped the galaxy on its axis. A primarch dead at the hands of his brother, within sight of the world of their creation.
But the Solar System turned without pause, unknowing or uncaring.
In the launch bay hangars Myzmadra swung up through the hatch of a lighter, as Ashul kicked the engines to life and the machine lifted from the deck. She glanced back as the hatch began to shut. The entrances to the hangar bay were already glowing hot from where lascutters bored into them from the other side. It was over; she had known that from the moment she heard the warning cries on the vox, and the false thunder of teleportation displacement. The Legion had taught her many things: subtlety, brutality, the kind of courage that existed in silence. And it had taught her that survival was better than death in a failing cause. The lighter turned its nose to the fire-stained dark beyond. The Solar System was a large place, large enough to vanish into like a drop of water into a lightless pool, large enough to give her the sanctuary of shadow while she waited.
‘Go,’ she said, and the lighter shot out into darkness.
In the command throne of the Alpha, Silonius watched the holoscreens and felt the ship shake around him as it took fire. In a dark pit of his being, he felt an emptiness grow.
‘Shield failure across ninety-eight per cent of frontal zones,’ called one of the senior enginseers. ‘Damage to dorsal and prow zones critical.’
‘Do we have teleport range to the Hydra moon fortress?’
‘Negative.’
The pulsing shake of impacts ran through him, as he watched the cascade of tactical information, force strength depleting across the fleet by the second.
‘Signal to all forces,’ he said. ‘Full withdrawal.’
‘By your will.’
‘We are legion,’ he whispered to himself. ‘We are many, and we are one.’
In the launch bays of the Lachrymae, Sigismund stared at Rann as the armourers and servitors yanked damaged plates from his armour, and arc-torches sent plumes of sparks into the air as they repaired what damage they could. The damage to his body would be a matter for later; for now there was only this moment of transition.
‘They are breaking?’ he asked.
Rann nodded.
‘Like dogs running from lions. Our ships are pursuing,’ Rann grinned, scars cracking the mask of dried blood on his face. ‘The slaughter will be great.’
Sigismund shook the armourers free.
‘Bring me my sword,’ he said.
And through all the quiet, and the deafening echoes of the past becoming the future, the dead slipped away, one by one, to be forgotten or remembered.
In the dark, Archamus heard the sound of his breath. Short gasps, wet with blood, growing shorter and shorter. Darkness filled his eyes. He must have fallen again, he thought, though he could not remember. He could not move his limbs. There were sounds, close by and loud, but so distant that they seemed like silence.
What are you afraid of?
He felt a presence close by, and hands lifted his head and shoulders off the floor.
‘Archamus?’ said Rogal Dorn.
‘Lord...’ he said, and felt himself gasp for breath with the effort. ‘You... You were wounded...’ The blackness bloomed and rippled around him. ‘Alpharius... What... What he said...’
‘Lies, nothing more.’
‘It... should never have come... come to this... I should have stopped him before it came to this... I failed you.’
‘You have never failed me, my son.’
‘I am... not your son, my lord... I am your praetorian.’
And then the last slice of the past fell into the future, and the darkness and silence became absolute.
Epilogue
Names
Omegon woke.
He had never slept, had never dreamed, or felt the tug of mortal fatigue in all the days of his existence. Yet here he was, waking from black oblivion, the cold deck of the ship beneath him, the darkness of his arming chamber close about him. The pulse of the Beta’s engines was a distant rumble on the edge of silence. Coldness poured through his flesh. Moisture beaded his skin. He could taste blood in his mouth, thick and harsh with iron. His hands were numb, the fingers hooked as though grasping something that had vanished. He moved the fingers and then brought them up to his face. Sharp needles of pain prickled beneath his touch.
And then a new feeling came, crushing in its weight, undeniable in its truth even though he could not tell how it had arrived.
He was alone.
Words began to form on his tongue, but the door to the chamber was already opening. Arkos stood in the light from the door, his battleplate humming as he stepped within.
‘Lord Omegon,’ Arkos said, bowing his head briefly, then stopping as his eyes fell on the primarch. ‘Is there something wrong?’
‘No... No. Is there...?’ He blinked. Cold spirals of light wormed briefly at the edge of sight.
Alone.
‘Is there word from Lord Alpharius?’ Omegon asked, still looking at his hands. He could sense Arkos’ frown without needing to see it.
‘None,’ he said. ‘But there is something else...’
Omegon looked up, the muscles of his neck cold as they moved.
‘Warmaster Horus wishes to consult directly with Lord Alpharius.’
‘Do we have any indication of what his concern is?’
‘No, lord,’ said Arkos. ‘Our sources within the Warmaster’s court have become... unreliable.’
Omegon nodded, glancing over his shoulder as though he had heard something in the empty dark.
‘Prepare the metatron,’ he said. ‘I will speak with my brother.’
Arkos nodded, his gaze lingering on his primarch for an instant before he left.
Alone.
Omegon armoured himself, the blind servitors bolting the plates of his armour over his flesh as the numbness in his hands and neck became a smouldering pain.
I am alone.
The knowledge rose through the coldness of his thoughts, certain and inescapable, though he could not say
how he knew that it was fact not fear. He had never been alone, not truly. Even from the first spark of a thought in his consciousness he had known that he was one of many, a fragment of a greater whole, a piece of a great destiny. And now...
He walked from his armoury, the scaled and crested helm of the primarch of the Alpha Legion under his arm.
Arkos was waiting in the sealed chamber where they kept the metatron. Omegon nodded, and the attendants began to unbolt the mask from the one-time astropath’s head. He watched as the famine-thin figure writhed, ghost light and smoke pouring from its mouth to form a shadow in the air above it, a shadow with a face and form. Frost spread across the floor and up his armour. He bowed his head even as the shadow turned to look at him.
What had happened? What was happening? What was he now?
And he realised that the words he was about to say would trap him for the rest of existence, the jest turned into mocking truth.
‘I am Alpharius,’ he said. ‘What is your will, my Warmaster?’
Andromeda looked up as he entered the cell. She sat on the top of the room’s only table, grey robes blending with the low light, chromed hair tinged gold by the grimy light of the glow-globes.
‘Are you to release or silence me, Kestros?’ she asked, and tilted her head, eyes calm and unblinking. He let out a breath as the door sealed behind him. After a second she shrugged. ‘I see you wear the cloak of the Huscarls now.’ Her eyes moved deliberately over his armour, pausing on the laurel-wreathed skull, and the black cloak and the ice lion fur covering his shoulders. ‘It suits you.’
She reached down to the tabletop beside her, picked up a cup of water that sat there and took a sip.
‘Knowledge is a dangerous thing,’ she said. ‘How far has the purge progressed?’
He shook his head slowly.
‘The primarch has ordered a systematic sweep of the system’s defences, and reconfiguration of elements which were found wanting.’
‘A purge is still a purge. The act itself does not change because you give it a different name. Have you found all of the Alpha Legion warriors and operatives who were embedded within the system?’
He held her gaze.
‘Who knows. Some escaped. Many have been engaged and destroyed. A few may have taken refuge in the system.’
‘They will have,’ she said. ‘There is no question of that, and that is presuming that all of the assets they placed here were activated. I would not trust that presumption if I were you.’
‘We are being thorough,’ he said.
‘I am sure you are,’ she said, and smiled coldly. ‘After all, you are here. One more unfortunate factor to be dealt with. I don’t blame you. Knowledge is poison, and I know too much. You can’t let the knowledge of the full scope of their operation spread outside of those who have to know. That Alpharius was here in the Solar System, on Terra... Too much, too dangerous a truth, to let live.’
He nodded once.
‘It is the primarch’s will that no record be made of Alpharius’ death, no word spoken of it. Even within the Legion, only he and the Huscarls know.’
‘Denying Alpharius even the honour of memory in death...’
‘Something like that.’
‘And now you have come to me,’ she said, and he saw the defiance flash in her eyes. ‘Have you considered what they wanted, what they were trying to achieve? Were they a harbinger force, the first stage of an invasion? Or did they simply want to see what you would do? They have that now, even if it cost them their primarch. They have seen your strength and measured it. Knowledge is a weapon, remember.’
He breathed out, and the breath became a sigh of laughter.
‘Which is why the primarch does not cast it aside.’ She frowned and opened her mouth to speak, but he carried on. ‘You are called to serve the Imperium, Andromeda. Lord Dorn has met with the Sigillite, and you can be of further use to us.’
‘And suppose that I choose not to be of use?’
It was his turn to shrug.
‘You will. It is your nature.’
She held his gaze for a long moment.
‘Archamus was right to pick you,’ she said.
He turned away and keyed a control beside the door. It clanked open.
‘There have been developments,’ he said. ‘A fleet is approaching the system’s outer sphere.’
She slid off the table and took a step towards the door.
‘Another attack?’
He shook his head.
‘No – the Khan has returned, with a great host of his White Scars. He comes to stand beside the Praetorian,’ he said. ‘The darkness grows, and the full force of the storm is just beyond the horizon.’
Andromeda smiled.
‘You have the echo of a poet within you, Kestros.’
‘That is no longer my name,’ he said.
She frowned.
‘Do you know what an oath name is?’ he asked as he stepped through the door.
Afterword
So, now you know. You’ve reached the end, and you’re probably wondering what else I am going to say about the book. Well, truth be told, not much. I’m going to let the story stand for itself. But I will tell you how it came about, and a bit of the thinking that went into it. If that’s a story you want to hear, read on. It’s all true, by the way, apart from the bits that memory and artistic licence have tweaked...
It started at Games Day 2007 when I picked up a staple-bound chapbook from Black Library. The cover was grey. On one side the Emperor advanced, burning sword in hand, his face fixed in cold rage. On the other side, the Warmaster stood over the body of Sanguinius. Printed above the Horus were the words ‘The Dark King, Graham McNeill’, and above the Emperor ‘The Lightning Tower, Dan Abnett’.
Now this seems like a long time ago, a frighteningly long time ago. The Horus Heresy series was really new. We were still getting to know characters like Garviel Loken and Horus Aximand. We did not know then what we know now. Everything was wild possibility.
Into that forming void dropped these two short stories – separate, but linked by one character.
Rogal Dorn.
I knew something of the Imperial Fists primarch before this; I knew that he was supremely loyal to the Emperor, a master of defence, and unbreakable. There were also tantalising hints in pieces of almost-forgotten lore about his reaction the events that followed the Horus Heresy. He almost went to war with Roboute Guilliman over the Legions being broken into Chapters. He led his warriors into the slaughter of the Iron Cage. He painted his armour black and went on a perpetual crusade. I knew this about Dorn, but then I read ‘The Dark King’ and ‘The Lightning Tower’, and two lines from Dorn echoed as I read them:
‘It will never end, don’t you see that? Hate only breeds hate and the Imperium cannot be built upon such bloody foundations.’
We will put everything back, thought Dorn. When this is done, we will put everything back the way it was.
Suddenly everything about him made sense. I understood why he nearly started a war over Guilliman’s changes to the Space Marines and the Imperium. I understood why he would paint his armour black as if in mourning. I saw how he had gotten to that point. He was more than just a stoic master of fortresses. He was an idealist. He believed, not just in the Emperor, but in the future that the Emperor was trying to create. Then Horus betrayed the Emperor. Caught between loyalty and necessity, Dorn would do what all Imperial Fists do: he would push back, he would dig in, he would take more and more weight onto his own shoulders.
And all the while he would tell himself that it was only for now. That they could rebuild.
Several years later I was a new Black Library author, still wet behind the ears and full of half-formed storylines. The Horus Heresy had grown and become a raw creative force, and the series had marched forwards to the dawn of the
Age of Darkness. The narrative was about to enter a period of uncharted opportunity and revelation. I was excited, but I was still a reader rather than a contributor, waiting to see the next stages unfold.
Then I had a chat with my then editor, Christian Dunn.
We were talking about the first short stories I had written for Black Library (one was called ‘Hunted’, the other ‘We Are One’, and both happened to feature the Alpha Legion). We had got past all of the editorial stuff, and were just chatting about the Horus Heresy in general when Christian said something like ‘I think we’re going to need to figure out what happens to the remembrancers.’
And a gun went off in my head.
I’m going to let you in on a secret. Most stories do not come from individual moments of inspiration – they come from hundreds of accumulated ideas, and a process of slowly finding a concept that works. They do not come in a single second. They do not come like a thunderbolt from a clear sky. Except that, right then, the idea for ‘The Last Remembrancer’ snapped into being, fully formed, demanding to exist, demanding to be written.
I did not say anything to Christian at the time. I was not in the Heresy gang. I had only written two stories for Black Library. I had no chance of being able to write a Horus Heresy story.
Except... the idea would not go away...
A few weeks later I pitched Christian ‘The Last Remembrancer’. He looked at me for a moment, and then said ‘Alright. Write it, and we’ll see. No guarantees.’
More time passed. More words passed. I was now on the Horus Heresy writing team, and it seemed that I was now expected to write a novel in the series’ main arc.
‘Any ideas?’ asked the assembled High Lords of Nottingham.
‘The Imperial Fists and Rogal Dorn,’ I replied. They nodded. By this point, this answer was expected almost to the point that if I had said anything else I think they would have been shocked. ‘But against the Alpha Legion and Alpharius,’ I went on.
That got their attention.