The Lost and the Damned

by Guy Haley

  Abaddon grunted. He did not disagree, but he would not add to his father’s burdens by feeding Aximand’s fears.

  Lupercal’s court was dark and forbidding. It was hard to remember how it was before Davin. A place of glory, where honourable men met to decide the fate of a galaxy; Abaddon assumed it had been so, rather than truly recalled it. The Vengeful Spirit stank of the warp’s influence, and it cheated men’s minds.

  On the surface, not much had altered. The banners had changed along with their allegiance, but the same decisions were made there, the same tables and chairs furnished the room, and many of the same warriors attended. The real transformation was less obvious. It lingered out of sight, an unmistakeable taint that hung over the hall, and a coy scent that refused definition forever on the edge of sensing: hints of incense, burnt sugar and powdered bone.

  The source of the unease was centred on Horus. Abaddon stared at his father. Again he was disturbed by what he saw. The Warmaster sat rigid on his throne, looking off into hidden worlds, not blinking, smiling knowingly, dull eyes oblivious to all that went on around him. The cracked skull of Ferrus Manus sitting on the throne’s armrest had more presence than the Warmaster at the moment, staring with empty-eyed defiance over the gathering.

  Kibre stood at Horus’ left side at stiff attention. He and Abaddon had hardly exchanged words in the last few weeks. Tormageddon, the daemon wearing its third stolen body, attended at Horus’ right. It wore a smirk that echoed Horus’ distant smile. Elements of Grael Noctua remained in Tormageddon’s warped features, but it was a dangerous illusion. Tormageddon’s being was wholly alien. It was at best a temporary ally. Tormageddon was another threat, another warp foulness that poisoned Abaddon’s father, twisting him away from what he had been, remaking him in the gods’ image and robbing him of his will.

  ‘Ezekyle, Little Horus,’ Tormageddon greeted them. Kibre was slow to acknowledge their presence, looking between the members of the party before speaking.

  ‘Brothers,’ he said eventually. ‘The Mournival is gathered.’

  Aximand looked suspiciously at Tormageddon. Both he and Abaddon had a hard time accepting the daemon as one of their own, but as Horus decreed it, so it must be.

  ‘For the final moves in this long war,’ said Abaddon. He clasped arms with Kibre, then did the same with the daemon, doing his best to mask his distaste. Aximand greeted Kibre, but pointedly ignored the Neverborn.

  A change came over the Warmaster as he returned from that other place his spirit so often went. His smile smoothed away, he grew in stature. Unease was replaced by calm. As Horus looked over them all and blessed them with his attention, Abaddon caught a glimpse of the man he had known.

  ‘My sons,’ said Horus. ‘The hour approaches.’

  Horus rose from his throne. His presence was such that the Mournival struggled to remain standing, while Layak freely knelt. Horus had always possessed a preternatural charisma, but this was something else, a dark majesty that demanded all the universe grovel before it.

  ‘My brothers!’ Horus commanded. ‘Hearken to me!’

  One by one, cones of hololithic projection light leapt into being around the court, turning the shadows grey and filling the space with phantoms. Besides Horus, only the Mournival and Layak’s group were present in the flesh.

  First to emerge was Angron. The transformation wrought on him made Horus’ change inconsequential. He was a red-skinned giant, the equal in size of the Pantheon’s greatest servants. Huge wings of tattered black skin furled around his back. The cables of the Butcher’s Nails, the archeotech device implanted in his brain when he was a slave, hung from his scalp around jutting horns in a tangle of metallic dreadlocks. Wild, yellow eyes stared from a face contorted forever with hate and rage, and his jaw worked around wolf’s teeth. He paced with poorly contained rage, making the role of the imagists on his ship difficult. He swam in and out of focus, and often only his face remained visible. He gave voice only to growls.

  Fulgrim was next, a purple-skinned, serpentine monster with four arms and a shock of ghost-white hair. Though he remained within the viewing field, Fulgrim was never still. Overwhelmed by his unnatural form as much as by his fidgeting, occasionally the hololith would fail completely, and present a jumble of white hair, serpent’s body and mocking faces, interspersed with glimpses of other places alive with abstract horrors.

  ‘Hello, brother,’ he said, always on the verge of mockery.

  Perturabo’s image snapped into being. The Lord of Iron remained in the outer system, more distant that the rest, and consequently his image lacked the definition of the others. He flickered, but persisted like a bad memory unwelcomely recalled. Unlike his brothers, he retained his original form, too stubborn to give himself over to worship as they had.

  ‘I attend you, my Warmaster,’ he said solemnly.

  Following Perturabo, Magnus the Red appeared, manifesting as a psychic projection that lent him a form of ersatz reality superior to the hololithic phantoms. When he walked, the air moved. Abaddon could smell his foreign scent. Despite the veracity of his image, it was a sorcerous falsehood that prickled at the skin and the soul. The cyclops wore the appearance of a crimson-skinned ogre clad in rich jewellery. Clothing himself in majesty he attempted to hide his true, altered form. He could not quite. The projection stuttered, showing some of the many faces Magnus favoured. Magnus had ever appeared in different guise, but masking what he had become seemed to tax him, and though he affected a studious air, all the expressions on all of his faces hinted at his pain.

  ‘Brothers,’ Magnus said. ‘Ezekyle, Little Horus, Falkus, and to you Tormageddon and to the priest, I give greetings.’

  With the principal players in place, dozens of lesser images flickered into being. Some full bodies, others disembodied heads. The highest officers, the grandest marshals and most lordly of admirals, commanders of the mortal armies that gave Horus’ forces so much of their size and might, and which outnumbered the manpower of the Legions hundreds of times over.

  The Fabricator General’s image appeared late among this crop, so large it swallowed several of the smaller phantoms. Kelbor-Hal was finally free of Mars and took the place of his emissary Sota-Nul, who had been at Horus’ side these last years. Abaddon thought it a change for the worse. Sota-Nul had been most useful, whereas the Fabricator General was inflated with a sense of self-importance. Abaddon doubted Kelbor-Hal knew how much his overweening pride offended the Warmaster.

  Barely had the group gathered, when Angron launched into a familiar tirade.

  ‘When do we attack?’ He thrust his head close to the imaging equipment, reducing his communications phantom to a single, glaring eye. ‘Why do we sit here in the void, when our weapons cannot harm our father? We must land, take the fight to Him with blade and fist. The God of Battle demands blood!’

  Fulgrim let out a musical laugh. ‘You may not believe this, brother Horus, but I am in agreement with our angry sibling. This bombardment is boring! Let my perfect sons run free – they will give you a swift victory.’

  ‘Your peacocks will achieve nothing!’ shouted Angron so loudly the audio-feed of his hololith shrieked with feedback. ‘My Legion should be first. Mine! We are the chosen of war. Give me the order, brother, and end this cowardice!’

  ‘Do you call the Warmaster coward?’ said Fulgrim slyly. ‘I say he bides his time for the Lord of Death to join us. Has Mortarion not yet arrived?’ He feigned disappointment at the XIV Legion’s absence.

  ‘There is no word yet from his fleet, my lord,’ Kibre reported. ‘They approach, and will be here within days.’

  ‘He was to be first on Terra. He begged you for the honour,’ scoffed Angron. ‘And he will not even speak! Give me the task, and I shall show you how ruin is made!’

  Horus stared at Angron with a baleful eye. He allowed his brother to rant on.

  ‘We smashed aside Dorn’s
feeble defences,’ Angron said. ‘We broke Luna in days. Why now do we slink around the Throneworld like curs, waiting for Mortarion, when victory is in our grasp?’

  ‘We smashed Dorn’s defences?’ Perturabo’s leaden response simmered with anger. ‘I, I, I! I broke Dorn’s gates, not we. Your sons did not bleed to ensure our success. You gave no plan to penetrate the system defences. I delivered the Solar System to the Warmaster. You claim a role in a victory you were not party to. Do you forget that I had to drag you back from your orgy of bloodletting to rejoin our brother? Were it not for me, you would not be here. Fulgrim would not be here. None of you would be here, now.’

  ‘You have done your part, little digger!’ Angron scoffed. ‘Land the Legions now! Let me be the point of the spear aimed at father’s heart. Cease this game. Bombardment is a weakling’s ploy.’

  Perturabo stiffened, taking the comment personally, which was surely Angron’s intention.

  ‘Attempt to land, and see how quickly father’s guns tear you to pieces,’ said Perturabo.

  ‘Silence,’ said Horus. His voice was hardly louder than a whisper, but it brought immediate quiet. ‘You will be silent now. All of you. All proceeds to plan. Perturabo, explain,’ said Horus.

  Angron snorted when Perturabo began. Horus cowed him with a glance.

  ‘Three things stand in our way,’ Perturabo began. ‘The Palace guns, the Palace aegis and father’s will, which keeps the Neverborn at bay. These problems cannot be resolved at once, but must be dealt with in order – beginning with the aegis. The bombardment patterns I have devised have revealed multiple shortcomings in the Palace shields. Between the hours I spend each day fortifying the outer reaches against our brothers’ coming – tasks not one of you have taken upon yourselves,’ he grumbled, ‘I have been examining auspex soundings of the void shield network.’

  ‘The priests of Mars designed the aegis, applying knowledge salvaged from the high days of technology,’ said Kelbor-Hal proudly. ‘You will find no weakness there.’

  ‘Then why do you not provide us with the information necessary to shut it down?’ said Abaddon.

  ‘Impossible,’ said Kelbor-Hal. ‘The control systems for the shields are as impregnable as the aegis itself.’ He was proud, a vain fool.

  ‘Every wall has a weakness. Build it how you will, from whatever mat­erial you can – stone, iron or dancing light, I shall bring it down,’ said Perturabo. ‘The centre is too strong as yet to break. Ground operations will be necessary to collapse the network to the extent that direct landing or bombardment will be successful within the Palace bounds.’

  ‘Then let us be about it!’ Angron howled.

  Perturabo gave the chosen of Khorne a sullen stare. ‘Against the success of such an action,’ the Lord of Iron continued, ‘stand the following factors. Firstly, the shields possess a wide-range modulation, beginning at the lower reach against any penetration of objects above one half-gram travelling faster than two metres per second. Infantry might walk through this aegis, but slowly.’

  ‘Impossible,’ said Aximand. ‘Voids are no defence against close attacks.’

  ‘These are not void shields as you understand them,’ said Perturabo. ‘The second factor against ground assault is the Palace’s extensive anti-air and anti-orbital defences, and its air defence squadrons. Before a major landing can be undertaken, these must be weakened, or any force sent against them will be annihilated in the air.’

  ‘You spoke of weaknesses,’ said Fulgrim. ‘Then, pray tell, oh glowering, sulky brother, where they are.’

  ‘The shields cannot be brought down from outside,’ said Perturabo, continuing his lecture as if Fulgrim had not spoken. ‘The Palace possesses an unrivalled void network consisting of multiple layers of lenticular fields. These differ from a standard voidal energy bubble, which forms a single skin defence around its ward in spherical or hemispherical configuration. The technology required to project stable lensing is exceedingly difficult to replicate, and at this scale practically impossible. Yet following the old patterns the Mechanicum succeeded. The Palace aegis networks consist of discrete elements, like a wall of shields, each an energy lens, each one overlapping the others enough that failure on the part of one reveals only a small hole, directly blocked below. By the time the lower lenses covering the hole are also brought down, the first will have been raised again. There are legions of Mechanicum adepts labouring beneath the Palace to keep the shields in operation. Multiple redundancy networks protect against failures up to full systemic levels. Power is provided by advanced thermal conversion beneath the Palace itself. It is a low-yield but stable energy source, and cannot be upset by magnetic frequency harmonics as a plasma reactor might be. The power supply cannot be directly targeted. Only the destruction of the planet itself would be sufficient to interrupt the flow of energy from the Palace vaults to the aegis.’

  ‘Then let us set down and lead our warriors in glorious charge against the walls,’ growled Angron.

  ‘That would result in your total destruction, either on descent, or on the ground.’

  ‘Cowards!’

  ‘Be patient, brother,’ said Perturabo. ‘You will have your glory. The shields cannot be broken. They cannot be starved of power. But they can be weakened.’

  An orbital vid-capture of a section of the Palace defences sprang up. The walls cut across the landscape neat as a draughtsman’s marks. The Palace-city’s giant buildings were models behind. The flattened coins of explosions displaced by void shielding blinked all over the defences, not touching the ground beneath.

  ‘This sequence depicts a rare failure. Within the bombardment pattern I concealed several distinct targeting cycles to test various aspects of the aegis – modulation, raising speed, power absorption and displacement, displacement response time, displacement triggering velocity and others.’

  ‘I provided all this information!’ protested Kelbor-Hal.

  ‘Consolidated datasets fall into false, idealistic patterns. Direct, practical experimentation is the only way I can be sure. The result of my test can be witnessed here,’ said Perturabo.

  Several shells and a volley of lance fire sparked off the shields. Suddenly, a gap opened over a tower, exposing it to fire from orbit that quickly toppled it.

  ‘Alas, this small result was achieved only due to an isolated flaw in that part of the network. Augury readings suggest a chained failure in three series of void generatoria, quickly rectified.’

  ‘Not so perfect, eh, Kelbor-Hal?’ giggled Fulgrim.

  ‘Note how quickly the shield is replaced,’ Perturabo continued.

  Over the burning rubble, the explosions changed back to toothless rounds of fire flattened on the shields.

  ‘Then what are you proposing?’ growled Angron. His head shook. His face twitched, but he held his temper. His display of control was impressive.

  ‘From this response time, and the other measurements provided to me from the main fleet, I have determined that the voids can be weakened sufficiently to allow passage of medium- to low-velocity objects, around the fringe only.’

  ‘Our brother has calculated a bombardment pattern of surpassing genius,’ said Horus. For a moment, Perturabo’s stolid expression showed a glint of pride. ‘We will unleash all of our fleet’s firepower at these points.’

  The vid-feed disappeared, replaced by a wider angle, tri-d view of the entire Palace. Equally spaced red markers blinked on all eight principal winds of the compass.

  ‘The precision of Perturabo’s attack will cause a serial weakening of the shield wall.’

  ‘Then it can be bombed,’ said Fulgrim.

  ‘The bombardment will not penetrate the final layer,’ said Perturabo. ‘Rapid, high-mass munitions or zero to low-mass light speed energy emissions will still be displaced. However, the final aegis layer will be weakened sufficiently to allow a seventy per cent chance of suc
cessful passage to attack craft travelling at one hundred and fifty kilometres an hour or lower.’

  ‘We can attack directly? What fine news!’ Fulgrim clapped with glee. ‘I shall prepare my squadrons at once.’

  Perturabo nodded. ‘Attack ships should prioritise void shield projection blisters and anti-ship weaponry towers, with secondary emphasis on anti-aircraft emplacements. Voids have one true vulnerability, that their projecting elements must be exposed. A large number are mounted on the wall itself. I predict an attrition rate of forty-five per cent attack ships lost, minimum. However, though the defences are formidable, we shall darken the sky with such numbers they will despair,’ said Perturabo.

  ‘While the Palace defences are occupied by our aerial attack,’ said Horus, ‘we will begin first landings. By splitting the enemy’s fire, we safeguard both attack and landing craft. Dorn will not want his guns destroyed, nor will he want our warriors outside the walls, but they cannot afford to lose their shields.’

  ‘I will prepare my warriors!’ bellowed Angron.

  ‘That brings us to the problem of the Neverborn,’ Perturabo said. He paused. ‘Who will tell him?’

  ‘You must find patience, my brother,’ Magnus said to Angron. ‘The warp is in turmoil around Terra, but no daemon may set foot there. Our father’s power holds back the tides of the empyrean. If you, I or Fulgrim were to attempt a landing, our souls would be torn from our bodies, and likely obliterated.’

  ‘Perturabo’s genius shows us the first cracks in Dorn’s walls. We must force another,’ said Horus. ‘Every drop of blood spilled upon Terra’s soil weakens our father’s power. The second blow will quickly follow the first. Once our allies of the warp have access to the mortal sphere, and the orbital defences of Terra are crippled, then the Legions shall attack.’

  ‘There is a way to limit our father’s power.’ Magnus waved his hand, and a new image, far sharper than any hololith, appeared. Lines joined the eight points together into an octed superimposed over the Palace. ‘Centre this upon the Palace, spill enough blood, then, and only then, Lord Angron, will father’s might be contained, and you may set foot safely upon Terra. Shortly after, all the legions of Neverborn contained by eternity shall march forth.’