As for the Khan himself, once the violence of restoration had ebbed, he retreated to his chambers on the flagship and took counsel on the Legion’s next move. Only Qin Xa and Yesugei stayed with him during that time, though it was known that a kurultai – a summit of the khans – would be convened to purge any remaining bad blood. It became quickly evident that the lodge faction had not truly understood what they had been working towards, for the Horus they venerated no longer existed. The knowledge gleaned from Magnus needed to be propagated swiftly, ending the long period of uncertainty that had blighted the Legion.
Such was the way of the old plains: grievances would be heard, penance would be meted, bonds restored.
No chrono-mark was set for the gathering, but all the khans knew it would be soon. Now that the shape of the treachery was known it would not be long before the brotherhoods were ordered to war, unified once more and thirsting for vengeance.
Until then, there was nothing to do but prepare, restore, and hope that the wounds would heal.
Shiban woke in the apothecarion. His body blazed with pain. Gingerly, he lifted his head. Tubes ran from his torso, gurgling with fluids. Blood-cycling machinery hummed in clusters around him. He saw vital-sign readouts scrolling across a dark screen, and noted how weak they were.
He felt nauseous. His head was hammering, throbbing as if filled with too much blood.
‘You’re awake, then,’ came a voice at his side.
Shiban turned his head to see the woman he had saved. She looked much as she had done on the bridge – a slight frame, clad in an old Army uniform. Her grey hair was tied back, her lined face scrubbed clean of the grime that had streaked it before.
He tried to bow, and failed. Spikes of pain ran up his neck.
‘I do not... I do not know your name,’ he croaked.
The woman bowed. ‘Ilya Ravallion. Counsellor to the Great Khan. Organiser. Observer. Hanger-on.’
Shiban swallowed dryly. He could feel nutrients entering his body from the tubes. It was an uncomfortable sensation.
‘In another Legion,’ said Ilya, ‘if things had gone worse, they tell me you might have been placed in a Dreadnought. But of course this Legion does not hold with them, so you are lucky to be so tough.’
Shiban grimaced. He did not feel lucky.
Ilya moved around the bed, so that he could face her without having to angle his head awkwardly. ‘Why did you help me?’ she asked.
‘I saw you before. On Chondax.’
‘You have a memory for faces.’
‘You stood out.’
‘As a woman?’
‘As a Terran.’
Ilya nodded. ‘We are getting rarer. The process will quicken now, I suppose.’
Shiban drew in a sharp breath. The pain was getting worse. If he could have lifted his head, he might have been able to see what had been done to the rest of his body. ‘What happened?’ he asked. ‘Afterwards?’
‘The Legion is restored,’ said Ilya. ‘You fought as well as I have ever seen. Things will be simpler from now on – allegiances have been cemented.’
Shiban’s brow creased. It was hard to remember anything with precision. ‘It was like… a madness.’
‘They tell me Prospero made it worse. The warp runs through the whole place, and we were reckless to remain there for so long. Then again, that is the mark of this Legion, is it not? I do not think you will change.’
‘What of Torghun?’
Ilya looked blank.
‘The Brotherhood of the Moon. We fought.’
‘In confinement, then. Judgement will come when the Khan makes his determination.’
Shiban felt a mix of emotions. Torghun was too fine a warrior to wish death upon, though the crime had been severe and many of his own battle-brothers had fallen. Shiban dreaded recovering sufficiently to read the death-tally. He wondered if the list would carry Jochi’s name. Or Sangjai’s, or Chel’s.
‘You let us onto the Swordstorm,’ he said. ‘So I could ask you the same question – why did you help me?’
Ilya shook her head, as if she didn’t quite know herself. ‘All those around me were behaving like madmen. They wouldn’t tell me anything, and the Khan was not there. I don’t like deception. Keeping secrets is what got us into this mess.’ She looked directly at him then, almost defiantly. ‘It was a feeling. Nothing more.’
Shiban did his best to nod. It was as good an explanation as he had for helping her. ‘What next, then?’ he asked.
‘We don’t know. Not yet.’ Then she smiled. She had an honest, sensible face, one that Shiban liked. ‘But we will not be waiting long – the uncertainty has gone from him now. He is anxious to move, to put all this behind us and join the war.’
Shiban let his head fall back onto the metal of the apothecarion cot. He had never been unhappy to hear of a new campaign; since Phemus, it had been the only thing he had wished for. Now, though, it was all different. They would be fighting old allies, brothers they had once marched out into the stars with as the vanguard of an assertive, united species.
‘I thought you’d be happy to hear that,’ Ilya said.
Shiban closed his eyes. ‘Happy?’ he said, dryly. ‘Not quite. This is not the war I was bred to fight.’
He could feel consciousness slipping away again, dragged by the powerful sedatives coursing around his system. He flexed his fingers, unused to feeling them out of their gauntlets.
‘You will remember joy, Shiban,’ said Ilya. ‘That is the difference between you and them, the Scars and the others – you laugh when taking up your blades.’
‘We did,’ murmured Shiban, drifting into drugged sleep, thinking of Torghun, thinking of Hasik, and wondering what fate awaited them all. ‘Once, we really did.’
The Khan and Yesugei stood alone on the Swordstorm, locked away in the primarch’s personal chambers. The field of stars showed in the main viewer, glittering and infinite. Neither of them wore armour. Yesugei was in his Stormseer’s ceremonial robes, the Khan in the old garb of a Khitan hunter – furs, long boots, dun-red cloak.
The primarch’s wounds had taken a long time to heal, by his standards. Mortarion’s scythe, it was postulated, had been envenomed with some kind of toxin, hampering the restorative process. For the first time in his life, Jaghatai bore scars not of his own making.
‘We were richly deceived,’ the Khan said slowly, the words dragged from his proud lips unwillingly.
‘Not only us,’ said Yesugei calmly.
‘We were the last to find out.’
‘There is no shame in that.’ Yesugei looked down at his hands. The skin was blistered from the fires he had unleashed upon Ledak. That had been a shameful lapse, though cathartic. ‘Magnus knew more than any of us, and for longer. That did not stop him making poor choices. Perhaps we were preserved.’
The Khan smiled wryly. ‘Preserved by ignorance.’
‘Those who know the truth are not equal to those who love the truth.’
The Khan raised an eyebrow. ‘One of your Qo sages?’
‘Terran, as it happens.’
‘Ah.’
They stood in silence for a while. Behind them, the fire crackled in the grate.
‘So what now, lord?’ asked Yesugei.
The Khan’s nostrils flared a little. He continued staring out at the starfield. His gaze had always been hard; now it seemed harder.
‘The Legion is intact. We are clear to hunt again.’
‘And those who declared for Horus?’
‘They did not know what they were doing. We all loved Horus.’ The Khan turned to Yesugei. ‘I loved Horus. The Horus who was. None of them knew what you had discovered, and if they had then they would have recoiled, just as you did.’ The Khan looked pensive. ‘I gave them freedom, and they used it. Who should be punished for that?’
‘Discipline must be maintained.’
The Khan nodded. ‘It will be. Hasik knows his fate. Others, too – the khans, the ones who should have exerc
ised restraint.’
Yesugei thought for a moment. ‘And now I am reminded of a legend. An old one, from the Talskar heartland.’
The Khan smiled tolerantly. ‘Oh?’
‘A khan marches on the territory of his enemy,’ said Yesugei. ‘He takes his three brothers with him, all of whom are trusted men. On the eve of combat, he finds the brothers have been exchanging messages with the enemy, hopeful of reaching accommodation rather than fighting. The khan is furious, and summons them to his ger. He hears their confessions, but his rage does not abate. The brothers tell him they were deceived and repent of their actions. Each of them, however, knows the law of the Altak, and prepares for death.
‘The khan consults his zadyin arga, as is customary. Five counsel death by beheading, but the sixth, the last, demurs. The khan demands to know why they should be spared. The weather-maker replies thus: “Khan, our enemies are cunning. If they succeed with their lies, we are divided. If they fail, they know these men will be executed. In either case, your horde is weakened, and they stand to prevail in battle.”
‘The khan listens to this counsel and sees the wisdom of it. He asks what he should do. The weather-maker replies thus: “Across the Altak there is no greater prize than honour, no heavier bond than shame. These men are shamed, and will perform any deed to expunge it. Send them ahead of your army. The enemy will see them coming and think them friends, but instead they will fight until death takes them, knowing only this way to recover their honour. When your army follows them, they will find an enemy weakened, just as they hoped to weaken you. Do this, and the victory will be yours.”’
The Khan nodded, amused. ‘Did he win?’
Yesugei looked back out, noncommittally, at the viewscreen. ‘I find legends are generally written by the victors.’
The Khan clasped his hands behind his back. ‘Warbands,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘Infiltrators. You took this tactic from the Iron Hand.’
‘Henricos has become a master of such warfare. Our brothers could learn much, fighting with him.’
‘Then I will think on it. Perhaps some will serve in this way.’
‘It would be a penance. It would cleanse their souls.’
‘Theirs are not the only souls that need cleansing.’
Yesugei paused before speaking again, looking preoccupied. The Khan waited for him.
‘I had... dreams,’ Yesugei said, haltingly.
‘Dreams of what?’
‘I saw you fighting. A spectre of the underworld, on a world of ruins.’
‘You saw Mortarion.’
Yesugei looked uneasy. ‘I do not know. In my dreams, you were slain.’
The Khan smiled. ‘Then, it seems, you did not have a true vision.’
‘Perhaps,’ said Yesugei. ‘Or maybe it was of something else. Something yet to come.’
‘Do you still have these dreams?’
‘Not since we arrived at Prospero.’
‘Then your answer is there.’
‘I have not slept since we arrived at Prospero.’
The Khan sighed. ‘My friend, not everything is fated,’ he said, though as the words left his lips he remembered what Magnus had told him.
All is known.
‘Not everything,’ admitted Yesugei, ‘but you were always bound up with the warp. All your brothers were. There is a pattern emerging. You have made an enemy of Mortarion, and he will not forget it.’
The Khan grinned rakishly. ‘Others, too. Russ must still be foaming at the mouth. Dorn as well. We are out on our own, distrusted by all, just as always. I find I cannot be truly upset about this.’
Yesugei looked at him. ‘So what is next?’
‘For now? The Legion is wounded. Tribunals will be held at the kurultai. Pride will be punished, loyalty rewarded. When we next hunt, we will be united again. That is the first step.’
‘And after that?’
The Khan remained staring at the stars. His scarred face felt tighter than it had done. Primarchs did not age, not like mortals, but neither were they wholly free of the wearing powers of time.
‘Horus must be stopped,’ he said quietly. ‘If it ends us all, he must be stopped. We will take the fight to the void, playing to our strengths.’
‘That will not be enough.’
‘It will slow him.’
‘Then where will it end?’
The Khan did not reply.
‘Henricos asked me a question before we set course for Prospero,’ said Yesugei. ‘He asked me whether I trusted that you would make the same decision we did.’
‘What did you tell him?’
‘That I had faith you would.’
‘Did you mean that?’
‘I had no idea what you would do. There were some nights I feared you might have remembered the old loyalties. Let us be honest, you have never seen eye to eye with your father, nor those around him.’
The Khan nodded. ‘I won’t pretend otherwise. If you had asked me on Chondax what I wanted to believe, it was that Horus had been wronged. I almost gave the order for Alaxxes. Had the Alpha Legion not intervened, I might have done it.’
‘But it was not them that held you back.’
‘No, not them.’ The Khan remembered how it had been then, with contradictory missives spilling from the lips of the star-speakers every hour. He remembered the anguish of his indecision, hidden from all but Qin Xa.
‘What, then?’
The Khan looked at him. ‘Because it was what I wished for. Because I wanted it to be true. It was the easier course, the one my hearts leapt at.’ He smiled grimly. ‘And if we learned anything from our home world, it is to distrust the path of ease. Comfort leads to decadence. Every worthy thing is difficult.’
Yesugei pondered that. ‘You sound like a zadyin arga.’
The Khan laughed. It was a clear sound – harder, perhaps, than before, but free of doubt.
‘I am no such thing,’ he said, turning back to the stars. The void gazed back at him, as if beckoning him into its war-torn embrace. ‘I am the Warhawk, the berkut, the wide-ranger. I am the spirit of wildfire, the uncatchable, the master of the ice-blue heavens. I have travelled further than any of my brothers, and none of them know my mind.’
He felt a stirring of savagery as he spoke, the kindling of an old joy, one that Chondax had ravaged but not quite extinguished.
‘What they say of hawks is also true,’ he said, his eyes glinting. ‘You have said it yourself, many times – we never forget the shape of the hunt. In the end we always come back to the hand that loosed us.’
It was just as Magnus had told him.
You still have a choice, brother.
‘So when the hour comes,’ he said, ‘whatever the fates demand, the White Scars will be on Terra.’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chris Wraight is the author of the Horus Heresy novel Scars and the Space Wolves novels Battle of the Fang and Blood of Asaheim. He has also written the Space Marine Battles novel Wrath of Iron, along with Schwarzhelm & Helborg: Swords of the Emperor and Luthor Huss in the Warhammer universe. He’s based in a leafy bit of south-west England, and when not struggling to meet deadlines enjoys running through scenic parts of it.
A BLACK LIBRARY PUBLICATION
Published in 2013 by Black Library, Games Workshop Ltd., Willow Road, Nottingham, NG7 2WS, UK
Cover illustration by Neil Roberts.
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