Tarvitz and Torgaddon had achieved a brotherhood during the war and eased the discontent between the two Legions. Loken had heard rumours that Eidolon was initially displeased with Tarvitz’s deportment, until he recognised how simple brotherhood and effort was redeeming his mistake. Eidolon, though he would never admit it, realised full well he was out of favour with the Warmaster, but as time passed, he found he was at least tolerated within the bounds of the commander’s war-tent, and consulted along with the other officers.
Sanguinius had also smoothed the way. He knew his brother Horus was keen to rebuke Fulgrim for the high-handed qualities his Astartes had lately displayed. Horus and Fulgrim were close, almost as close as Sanguinius and the Warmaster. It dismayed the Lord of Angels to see a potential rift in the making.
‘You cannot afford dissent,’ Sanguinius had said. ‘As Warmaster, you must have the undivided respect of the primarchs, just as the Emperor had. Moreover, you and Fulgrim are too long bound as brothers for you to fall to bickering.’
The conversation had taken place during a brief hiatus in the fighting, during the sixth week, when Raldoron and Sedirae were leading the main force west into a series of valleys and narrow defiles along the foothills of a great bank of mountains. The two primarchs had rested for a day in a command camp some leagues behind the advance. Loken remembered it well. He and the others of the Mournival had been present in the main wartent when Sanguinius brought the matter up.
‘I don’t bicker,’ Horus said, as his armourers removed his heavy, mud-flecked wargear and bathed his limbs. ‘The Emperor’s Children have always been proud, but that pride is becoming insolence. Brother or not, Fulgrim must know his place. I have trouble enough with Angron’s bloody rages and Perturabo’s damn petulance. I’ll not brook disrespect from such a close ally.’
‘Was it Fulgrim’s error, or his man Eidolon’s?’ Sanguinius asked.
‘Fulgrim made Eidolon lord commander. He favours his merits, and evidently trusts him, and approves of his manner. If Eidolon embodies the character of the III Legion, then I have issue with it. Not just here. I need to know I can rely upon the Emperor’s Children.’
‘And why do you think you can’t?’
Horus paused while an attendant washed his face, then spat sidelong into a bowl held ready by another. ‘Because they’re too damn proud of themselves.’
‘Are not all Astartes proud of their own cohort?’ Sanguinius took a sip of wine. He looked over at the Mournival. ‘Are you not proud, Ezekyle?’
‘To the ends of creation, my lord,’ Abaddon replied.
‘If I may, sir,’ said Torgaddon, ‘there is a difference. There is a man’s natural pride and loyalty to his own Legion. That may be a boastful pride, and the source of rivalry between Astartes. But the Emperor’s Children seem particularly haughty, as if above the likes of us. Not all of them, I hasten to add.’
Listening, Loken knew Torgaddon was referring to Tarvitz and the other friends he had made amongst Tarvitz’s unit.
Sanguinius nodded. ‘It is their mindset. It has always been so. They seek perfection, to be the best they can, to echo the perfection of the Emperor himself. It is not superiority. Fulgrim has explained this to me himself.’
‘And Fulgrim may believe so,’ Horus said, ‘but superiority is how it manifests amongst some of his men. There was once mutual respect, but now they sneer and condescend. I fear it is my new rank that they resent. I’ll not have it.’
‘They don’t resent you,’ Sanguinius said.
‘Maybe, but they resent the role my rank invests upon my Legion. The Luna Wolves have always been seen as rude barbarians. The flint of Cthonia is in their hearts, and the smudge of its dirt upon their skins. The Children regard the Luna Wolves as peers only by dint of my Legion’s record in war. The Wolves sport no finery or elegant manners. We are cheerfully raw where they are regal.’
‘Then maybe it is time to consider doing what the Emperor suggested,’ Sanguinius said.
Horus shook his head emphatically. ‘I refused that on Ullanor, honour though it was. I’ll not contemplate it again.’
‘Things change. You are Warmaster now. All the Legions Astartes must recognise the pre-eminence of the XVI Legion. Perhaps some need to be reminded.’
Horus snorted. ‘I don’t see Russ trying to clean up his berserk horde and rebrand them to court respect.’
‘Leman Russ is not Warmaster,’ said Sanguinius. ‘Your title changed, brother, at the Emperor’s command, so that all the rest of us would be in no mistake as to the power you wield and the trust the Emperor placed in you. Perhaps the same thing must happen to your Legion.’
Later, as they trudged west through the drizzle, following the plodding Titans across red mudflats and skeins of surface water, Loken asked Abaddon what the Lord of Angels had meant.
‘At Ullanor,’ the first captain answered, ‘the beloved Emperor advised our commander to rename the XVI Legion, so there might be no mistake as to the power of our authority.’
‘What name did he wish us to take?’ Loken asked.
‘The Sons of Horus,’ Abaddon replied.
THE SIXTH MONTH of the campaign was drawing to a close when the strangers arrived.
Over the period of a few days, the vessels of the expedition, high in orbit, became aware of curious signals and etheric displacements that suggested the activity of starships nearby, and various attempts were made to locate the source. Advised of the situation, the Warmaster presumed that other reinforcements were on the verge of arrival, perhaps even additional units from the Emperor’s Children. Patrolling scout ships, sent out by Master Comnenus, and cruisers on picket control, could find no concrete trace of any vessels, but many reported spectral readings, like the precursor field elevations that announced an imminent translation. The expedition fleet left high anchor and took station on a battle-ready grid, with the Vengeful Spirit and the Proudheart in the vanguard, and the Misericord and the Red Tear, Sanguinius’s flagship, on the trailing flank.
When the strangers finally appeared, they came in rapidly and confidently, gunning in from a translation point at the system edges: three massive capital ships, of a build pattern and drive signature unknown to Imperial records.
As they came closer, they began to broadcast what seemed to be challenge signals. The nature of these signals was remarkably similar to the repeat of the outstation beacons, untranslatable and, according to the Warmaster, akin to music.
The ships were big. Visual relay showed them to be bright, sleek and silver-white, shaped like royal sceptres, with heavy prows, long, lean hulls and splayed drive sections. The largest of them was twice the keel length of the Vengeful Spirit.
General alert was sounded throughout the fleet, shields raised and weapons unshrouded. The Warmaster made immediate preparations to quit the surface and return to his flagship. Engagements with the megarachnid were hastily broken off, and the ground forces recalled into a single host. Horus ordered Comnenus to make hail, and hold fire unless fired upon. There seemed a high probability that these vessels belonged to the megarachnid, come from other worlds in support of the nests on Murder.
The ships did not respond directly to the hails, but continued to broadcast their own, curious signals. They prowled in close, and halted within firing distance of the expedition formation.
Then they spoke. Not with one voice, but with a chorus of voices, uttering the same words, overlaid with more of the curious musical transmissions. The message was received cleanly by the Imperial vox, and also by the astrotelepaths, conveyed with such force and authority, Ing Mae Sing and her adepts winced.
They spoke in the language of mankind. ‘Did you not see the warnings we left?’ they said. ‘What have you done here?’
PART THREE
THE DREADFUL SAGITTARY
ONE
Make no mistakes
Cousins far removed
Other ways
AS AN UNEXPECTED sequel to the war on Murder, they became
the guests of the interex, and right from the start of their sojourn, voices had begun to call for war.
Eidolon was one, and a vociferous one at that, but Eidolon was out of favour and easy to dismiss. Maloghurst was another, and so too were Sedirae and Targost, and Goshen, and Raldoron of the Blood Angels. Such men were not so easy to ignore.
Sanguinius kept his counsel, waiting for the Warmaster’s decision, understanding that Horus needed his brother primarch’s unequivocal support.
The argument, best summarised by Maloghurst, ran as follows: the people of the interex are of our blood and we descend from common ancestry, so they are lost kin. But they differ from us in fundamental ways, and these are so profound, so inescapable, that they are cause for legitimate war. They contradict absolutely the essential tenets of Imperial culture as expressed by the Emperor, and such contradictions cannot be tolerated.
For the while, Horus tolerated them well enough. Loken could understand why. The warriors of the interex were easy to admire, easy to like. They were gracious and noble, and once the misunderstanding had been explained, utterly without hostility.
It took a strange incident for Loken to learn the truth behind the Warmaster’s thinking. It took place during the voyage, the nine-week voyage from Murder to the nearest outpost world of the interex, the mingled ships of the expedition and its hangers-on trailing the sleek vessels of the interex flotilla.
The Mournival had come to Horus’s private staterooms, and a bitter row had erupted. Abaddon had been swayed by the arguments for war. Both Maloghurst and Sedirae had been whispering in his ear. He was convinced enough to face the Warmaster and not back down. Voices had been raised. Loken had watched in growing amazement as Abaddon and the Warmaster bellowed at each other. Loken had seen Abaddon wrathful before, in the heat of combat, but he had never seen the commander so ill-tempered. Horus’s fury startled him a little, almost scared him.
As ever, Torgaddon was trying to diffuse the confrontation with levity. Loken could see that even Tarik was dismayed by the anger on show.
‘You have no choice!’ Abaddon snarled. ‘We have seen enough already to know that their ways are in opposition to ours! You must—’
‘Must?’ Horus roared. ‘Must I? You are Mournival, Abaddon! You advise and you counsel, and that is your place! Do not imagine you can tell me what to do!’
‘I don’t have to! There is no choice, and you know what must be done!’
‘Get out!’
‘You know it in your heart!’
‘Get out!’ Horus yelled, and cast aside his drinking cup with such force it shattered on the steel deck. He glared at Abaddon, teeth clenched. ‘Get out, Ezekyle, before I look to find another first captain!’
Abaddon glowered back for a moment, spat on the floor and stormed from the chamber. The others stood in stunned silence.
Horus turned, his head bowed. ‘Torgaddon?’ he said quietly.
‘Lord, yes?’
‘Go after him, please. Calm him down. Tell him if he craves my forgiveness in an hour or two, I might soften enough to hear him, but he’d better be on his knees when he does it, and his voice had better not rise above a whisper.’
Torgaddon bowed and left the chamber immediately. Loken and Aximand glanced at one another, made an awkward salute, and turned to follow him out.
‘You two stay,’ Horus growled.
They stopped in their tracks. When they turned back, they saw the Warmaster was shaking his head, wiping a hand across his mouth. A kind of smile informed his wide-set eyes. ‘Throne, my sons. How the molten core of Cthonia burns in us sometimes.’
Horus sat down on one of the long, cushioned couches, and waved to them with a casual flick of his hand. ‘Hard as a rock, Cthonia, hot as hell in the heart. Volcanic. We’ve all known the heat of the deep mines. We all know how the lava spurts up sometimes, without warning. It’s in us all, and it wrought us all. Hard as rock with a burning heart. Sit, sit. Take wine. Forgive my outburst. I’d have you close. Half a Mournival is better than nothing.’
They sat on the couch facing him. Horus took up a fresh cup, and poured wine from a silver ewer. ‘The wise one and the quiet one,’ he said. Loken wasn’t sure which the Warmaster thought he was. ‘Counsel me, then. You were both entirely too silent during that debate.’
Aximand cleared his throat. ‘Ezekyle had… a point,’ he began. He stiffened as he saw the Warmaster raise his eyebrows.
‘Go on, little one.’
‘You have… that is to say… we prosecute this crusade according to certain doctrines. For two centuries, we have done so. Laws of life, laws on which the Imperium is founded. They are not arbitrary. They were given to us, to uphold, by the Emperor himself.’
‘Beloved of all,’ Horus said.
‘The Emperor’s doctrines have guided us since the start. We have never disobeyed them.’ Aximand paused, then added, ‘Before.’
‘You think this is disobedience, little one?’ Horus asked. Aximand shrugged. ‘What about you, Garviel?’ Horus asked. ‘Are you with Aximand on this?’
Loken looked back into the Warmaster’s eyes. ‘I know why we ought to make war upon the interex, sir,’ he said. ‘What interests me is why you think we shouldn’t.’
Horus smiled. ‘At last, a thinking man.’ He rose to his feet and, carrying his cup carefully, walked across to the right-hand wall of the stateroom, a section of which had been richly decorated with a mural. The painting showed the Emperor, ascendant above all, catching the spinning constellations in his outstretched hand. ‘The stars,’ Horus said. ‘See, there? How he scoops them up? The zodiacs swirl into his grasp like fireflies. The stars are mankind’s birthright. That’s what he told me. That’s one of the first things he told me when we met. I was like a child then, raised up from nothing. He set me at his side, and pointed to the heavens. Those points of light, he said, are what we have been waiting generations to master. Imagine, Horus, every one a human culture, every one a realm of beauty and magnificence, free from strife, free from war, free from bloodshed and the tyrannous oppression of alien overlords. Make no mistake, he said, and they will be ours.’
Horus slowly traced his fingers across the whorl of painted stars until his hand met the image of the Emperor’s hand. He took his touch away and looked back at Aximand and Loken. ‘As a foundling, on Cthonia, I saw the stars very infrequently. The sky was so often thick with foundry smoke and ash, but you remember, of course.’ ‘Yes,’ said Loken. Little Horus nodded. ‘On those few nights when the stars were visible, I wondered at them. Wondered what they were and what they meant. Little, mysterious sparks of light, they had to have some purpose in being there. I wondered such things every day of my life until the Emperor came. I was not surprised when he told me how important they were.’
‘I’ll tell you a thing,’ said Horus, walking back to them and resuming his seat. ‘The first thing my father gave me was an astrological text. It was a simple thing, a child’s primer. I have it here somewhere. He noted my wonder in the stars, and wished me to learn and understand.’
He paused. Loken was always captivated whenever Horus began to refer to the Emperor as ‘my father’. It had happened a few times since Loken had been part of the inner circle, and on every occasion it had led to unguarded revelations.
‘There were zodiac charts in it. In the text,’ Horus took a sip of his wine and smiled at the memory. ‘I learned them all. In one evening. Not just the names, but the patterns, the associations, the structure. All twenty signs. The next day, my father laughed at my appetite for knowledge. He told me the zodiac signs were old and unreliable models, now that the explorator fleets had begun detailed cosmological mapping. He told me that the twenty signs in the heavens would one day be matched by twenty sons like me. Each son would embody the character and notion of a particular zodiac group. He asked me which one I liked the best.’
‘What did you answer?’ Loken asked. Horus sat back, and chuckled. ‘I told him I liked all the patterns t
hey made. I told him I was glad to finally have names for the sparks of light in the sky. I told him I liked Leos, naturally for his regal fury and Skorpos, for his armour and warlike blade. I told him that Tauromach appealed to my sense of stubbornness, and Arbitos to my sense of fairness and balance.’ The Warmaster shook his head, sadly. ‘My father said he admired my choices, but was surprised I had not picked another in particular. He showed me again the horseman with the bow, the galloping warrior. The dreadful Sagittary he said. Most warlike of all. Strong, relentless, unbridled, swift and sure of his mark. In ancient times, he told me, this was the greatest sign of all. The centaur, the horse-man, the hunter-warrior, had been beloved in the old ages. In Anatoly in his own childhood, the centaur had been a revered symbol. A rider upon a horse, so he said, armed with a bow. The most potent martial instrument of its age, conquering all before it. Over time, myth had blended horseman and steed into one form. The perfect synthesis of man and war machine. That is what you must learn to be, he told me. That is what you must master. One day, you must command my armies, my instruments of war, as if they were an extension of your own person. Man and horse, as one, galloping the heavens, submitting to no foe. At Ullanor, he gave me this.’
Horus set down his cup, and leaned forward to show them the weathered gold ring he wore on the smallest finger of his left hand. It was so eroded by age that the image was indistinct. Loken thought he could detect hooves, a man’s arm, a bent bow.
‘It was made in Persia, the year before the Emperor was born. The dreadful Sagittary. This is you now, he said to me. My Warmaster, my centaur. Half man, half army embedded in the Legions of the Imperium. Where you turn, so the Legions turn. Where you move, so they move. Where you strike, so they strike. Ride on without me, my son, and the armies will ride with you.’ There was a long silence. ‘So you see,’ Horus smiled. ‘I am predisposed to like the dreadful Sagittary, now we meet him, face to face.’